On 8 January 2002, the African National Congress will celebrate 90 years of existence. The ANC was founded in 1912 to unite the African people against white minority rule and to act collectively for the creation of a non-racial and democratic South Africa. From its inception, the ANC saw this task as a part of what the organisation's founders called the "regeneration of Africa".
Over nine decades the ANC has forged and led a powerful national liberation movement which has united millions of South Africans in a hard-fought struggle for freedom. Through years of hardship, amid numerous setbacks, but thanks to the sacrifices of countless patriots, we have together defeated the forces of racial oppression and ushered in a new era of peace, democracy and reconstruction.
We have much to celebrate. But we also have much to do. As we recall our past, as we honour our heroes, as we commemorate our achievements, we need to remember that the historic mission for which the ANC was formed is not yet complete.
As we continue the struggle to free South Africa's people from all forms of oppression - alongside our efforts to achieve the regeneration of the entire African continent - we need to draw lessons, strength and inspiration from 90 years of struggle.
South Africa was conquered by force, and for much of the last century has been ruled by force. White settlers first came to South Africa in 1652. Many wars were waged with the indigenous people, and although the African kingdoms lost land and cattle they were still independent some 200 years after the arrival of the first settlers.
The arrival of the British military forces in South Africa at the beginning of the 19th century marked a qualitative and quantitative change in the anti-colonial resistance struggle, immensely strengthening the forces of colonisation and oppression. By 1900 the power of the African kingdoms had been broken and they had been brought under the control of the colonial government. Africans had to find new ways to fight for their land and their freedom. A rebellion against the Poll Tax, led by Chief Bambatha in 1906, was brutally suppressed by the Natal colonial authorities.
With the African kingdoms militarily defeated, and the Boer republics incorporated into a larger British colony, the white inhabitants of South Africa forged a political union which would consolidate their control over the land to the exclusion of the black majority. The Union of South Africa was established on 31 May 1910, entrenching the loss to Africans of freedom, land and dignity which had begun in previous decades.
Following a decade of organisation among Africans, coloureds and Indians in different parts of the country, there was a growing desire for a single movement to champion the interests of South Africa's majority. On 8 January 1912, representatives of people's organisations, religious bodies, prominent individuals, clergymen and chiefs gathered at Mangaung in Bloemfontein and formed the South African Native National Congress. Its aim was to bring together all Africans as one people to defend their rights and to fight for freedom. In 1923 the organisation changed its name to the African National Congress (ANC).
Following the discovery of gold and diamonds in the late 19th Century, various laws and taxes had been introduced to force Africans off the land to provide cheap labour in the white economy. The emergence of a black working class gave rise to worker organisation and resistance. The Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU), formed in 1919, won some major victories for black workers through militant action. Socialist organisations had also begun to organise black workers in the 1920s. The International Socialist League together with other socialist organisations formed the Communist Party in 1921.
During the 1920s government policies became harsher and more racist. A rigid colour-bar was established to stop blacks from holding skilled jobs in a number of industries. Josiah T. Gumede, who was elected ANC President in 1927, sought to revitalise the ANC to fight these racist policies. However, in 1930, Gumede was voted out of office in a conservative backlash. Under the more cautious leadership of Seme the ANC withdrew into itself, and became divided.
The rise of fascism in Europe was accompanied by efforts by right-wing Afrikaners to stir up ethnic nationalism and racial hatred in South Africa.
A group taking its inspiration from Nazism in Germany set up the Ossewa Brandwag (OB) and began agitating for a Nazi-type government in South Africa. To oppose the rise of fascist movements in South Africa a number of organisations came together in 1936 to form a united front. Short-sightedly, many of the whites refused to ally themselves with the ANC and other black movements.
To fill the political vacuum created by the weakness and divisions in the ANC, James La Guma and John Gomas took the lead in establishing the National Liberation League. They attracted support from among younger coloured and Indian militants. The League was central to the formation of the Non-European United Front (NEUF) with an anti-racist and anti-fascist programme that sought to unite Africans, coloured and Indians in one front to fight for freedom.
When the Second World War broke out in 1939, the white parliament voted by a small majority to join the war against Nazism.
The ANC was boosted with new life and energy in the 1940s. Under the leadership of Dr AB Xuma, with the Reverend CR Calata as Secretary-General, ANC branches throughout the country had steadily been rebuilt after 1940. In 1943, Dr Xuma called together a committee of African leaders, thinkers and opinion-makers to draft the 'African Claims', published in 1946.
In 1944 a group of younger ANC members led by Anton Lembede and Walter Sisulu helped establish the ANC Youth League, which aimed to involve the masses of people in militant struggles.
Strikes, boycotts and other mass struggles during the war years culminated in the strike by African mineworkers in 1946. In the rural areas of Northern Province and the eastern Free State peasants rose in revolt against the impositions of the white government and oppressive chiefs in their pay. When the Smuts government passed laws to prohibit Indians from acquiring land in certain parts of the city, its action was met with a Passive Resistance campaign led by the South African Indian Congress.
The Youth League drew up a Programme of Action calling for strikes, boycotts and civil disobedience. It was adopted by the ANC in 1949, and led to the Defiance Campaign of the 1950s.
The introduction of apartheid by the National Party after it came to power in 1948 increased the determination of South Africa's majority to resist it.
During the Defiance of Unjust Laws Campaign of 1952, volunteers deliberately broke apartheid laws. The government tried to stop the Defiance Campaign by banning its leaders and passing new laws to prevent civil disobedience. But the campaign had already made huge gains.
The Congress Alliance, which brought the ANC together with Indian, coloured and white organisations, organised the Congress of the People, which adopted the Freedom Charter at Kliptown on 26 June 1955. A huge campaign was mounted by women countrywide against the extension of the pass laws to African women, culminating in the women's march on the Union Buildings on 9 August 1956. In the same year, the government arrested 156 leaders of the ANC and its allies and charged them with high treason using the Freedom Charter as the basis of its charge. All the accused were eventually acquitted.
On 21 March 1960, police opened fire on an anti-pass demonstrations in Sharpeville, killing 69 people and wounding 186. On 30 March the government banned the ANC and the Pan Africanist Congress, declared a state of emergency, arrested and detained thousands without trial.
The massacre of peaceful protestors and the subsequent banning of the ANC made it clear that peaceful protest alone would not bring about change. On 16 December 1961 organised acts of sabotage against government installations took place, marking the emergence of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the ANC. During the following 18 months MK carried out 200 acts of sabotage. In 1963, police raided MK's secret headquarters at Lilliesleaf Farm in Rivonia and arrested the leadership of MK. This led to the famous Rivonia Trial where the leaders of MK were charged with attempting to cause a violent revolution, and were sentenced to life imprisonment.
In 1967, MK launched a joint campaign with ZIPRA, a people's army fighting for the liberation of Zimbabwe, to find a route into South Africa by first crossing the Zambezi River from Zambia into Zimbabwe, then marching across Zimbabwe through the Wankie game reserve, and crossing the Limpopo River into South Africa. The cadres acquired valuable experience in combat but were unable to reach South Africa. It was clear other ways of getting into the country would have to be found. The ANC consultative conference at Morogoro, Tanzania in 1969 was called to look for solutions to this problem.
The conference resolved that freedom called for an all-round struggle, which included armed struggle, mass political struggle, underground struggle and the international isolation of apartheid.
In the 1970s new struggles against the system began to grow. In response to the poor conditions of workers, spontaneous strikes began in Durban in 1973 and later spread to other parts of the country. In the segregated black universities a new movement, dubbed 'black consciousness', was developing.
Strikes and class boycotts erupted at the University of the Western Cape, at Turfloop near Pietersburg and at the University of Zululand.
Student anger and grievances against Bantu Education exploded in June 1976.
Tens of thousands of high school students took to the streets to protest against compulsory use of Afrikaans at schools. Police opened fire on marching students, sparking an uprising that spread to other parts of the country. This was the turning point in the struggle for liberation.
Thousands of young people flocked to the ANC, MK and the re-emerging trade union and workers movement.
In the 1980s, people took the liberation struggle to new heights. All areas of life became areas of political struggle. The ANC was able to step up the armed struggle inside South Africa dramatically after 1975. Underground organisers, armed militants and propagandists of the movement helped stoke a mood of rebellion and defiance. Sensational armed operations demonstrated the vulnerability of the apartheid regime and captured the imagination of the youth.
Community organisations such as civics, women's structures, and student and youth organisations began to spring up all over South Africa. There was a rebirth of the mass movement, culminating in the formation in 1983 of the United Democratic Front (UDF). Massive national school boycotts rocked the townships in 1980s and again in 1984/5.
Worker organisation and power took a major step forward with the formation of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) in 1985. Cosatu committed itself to advancing the struggles of workers both in the workplace and in society at large and adopted the Freedom Charter as its programme.
In April 1985, the ANC called on the people to make South Africa ungovernable by dismantling all the structures of apartheid. As resistance mounted, the regime became more vicious, declaring states of emergency, detaining thousands of people, assassinating activists and arming vigilante groups to combat the democratic forces.
The 1980s also saw the escalation of the international campaign against apartheid. This massive international effort complemented, and was guided by, the mass struggles of South Africa's people themselves. Through internal resistance and international isolation, the apartheid government began to crumble.
In February 1990, the regime was forced to unban the ANC and SACP, and to release Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners. The ANC began again to recruit members openly, and establish branch and regional structures.
The negotiations process in the early 1990s became a terrain of struggle itself. The NP planned to lock the ANC into protracted negotiations, while the structures of the ANC on the ground would have been rendered ineffective by ongoing state-sponsored violence. In the face of this violence -including the massacre of 39 residents of Boipatong in June 1992 - and the intransigence of the regime, the ANC embarked on a campaign of mass action to bring about an end to the violence and break the deadlock in negotiations. As a result of these efforts, a Record of Understanding was signed with the NP, which paved the way for the resumption of multi-party talks. The talks resulted in agreement on constitutional principles for a final democratic constitution and the adoption in 1993 of an interim constitution.
On 27 April 1994, millions of South Africans went to vote for the first time. The ANC won the country's first democratic election with a vast majority. On 10 May, Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as the President of South Africa, heading a Government of National Unity. Apart from the immediate tasks of governance - transforming the public service and security forces, stabilising the economy, and beginning the process of meeting basic needs - the ANC focused its attention on the task of writing a new democratic constitution.
The new Constitution was adopted in 1996, making provision for a united, democratic South Africa in which all enjoyed equal rights. It established institutions to support, protect and enhance democracy, such as the Human Rights Commission, Commission for Gender Equality, Public Protector, Auditor General and Electoral Commission. The ANC-led government proceeded to implement the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), adopted in 1994 as the basic policy framework guiding the transformation of the country.
South Africa's second democratic election was held in 1999. Thabo Mbeki succeeded Nelson Mandela as President of South Africa. With an increased mandate, the ANC-led government continued to build on the foundation established during the first five years of democratic rule.
As the world marked the beginning of a new millennium in January 2000, the ANC joined leaders and organisations across the continent in declaring the 21st century an African Century. The ANC has therefore given substantial support to efforts by African leaders to develop a continent-wide programme for the renewal of Africa. This programme, adopted by the OAU in July 2001 and endorsed by a number of developed countries and organisations, envisages a multi-pronged strategy to eradicate poverty and place African countries on a path of sustainable growth and development.
From its formation, the ANC has always been a movement for the liberation of all the peoples of Africa, including South Africa. It has always seen itself as a fighter for freedom and independence, and the restoration of the human dignity of all Africans. Loyal to this human and patriotic tradition, the ANC is convinced that Africa's time has come. Afrika ke Nako.