EDUCATION AGAINST APARTHEID

[Paper presented to the International NGO Seminar on Education against Apartheid - organised by the Non-governmental Organisations Sub-Committee on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Apartheid and Decolonisation, in cooperation with the United Nations Special Committee against Apartheid - at the Palais des Nations, Geneva, September 4-6, 1989]

This seminar on "education against apartheid" has wisely refrained from limiting its agenda to the role of formal educational institutions, and extended it to include the activities of the media, religious bodies, non-governmental organisations and conferences in educating the public and mobilising it for action against apartheid. For, if the purpose is to promote action, it would be wrong to ignore the great influence which the campaigns against apartheid have had and can have on educating public opinion. The people oppressed by apartheid cannot be expected to wait for the results of the long process of formal education from childhood of generations of people in other countries.

This is not to belittle the importance of education in formal institutions, but to warn against undue expectations as regards its contribution to action against apartheid with a sense of urgency - especially in view of the restraints by authorities and influence of vested interests on educational curricula in countries where public action is crucial.

Programmes on apartheid in formal educational institutions should not lead to a diversion of effort and resources from the educational or information aspects of anti-apartheid activities. The two programmes are complementary and serve related purposes.

Education of children about apartheid is desirable, but its purpose must be seen as wider than promoting support for action against apartheid. It is not as if the intention is to train the children to be more sensitive to the problem of racism than the adults who have tolerated or collaborated with apartheid. Rather, the purpose is to educate the entire community not only to act against apartheid now but to learn from the struggle against apartheid in order to help build a world in which people of diverse backgrounds live harmoniously in equality.

The system of apartheid has developed in South Africa under certain historical and other circumstances. It is based on an ideology that people of varied racial origins or cultural backgrounds, or stages of development, cannot live together and prosper as equals - and that the separation of peoples and domination by one ("white") group (baaskap) is essential.

The struggle for the abolition of this system in South Africa has been protracted and extremely difficult - far more difficult than the struggle against colonialism of mighty Powers - because it has been sustained by external forces, or the old international order, which provided it political and economic support, and obstructed concerted action for its abolition.

Educational programmes against apartheid must involve a study of the history of South Africa; the emergence of apartheid, following conquest of the indigenous people, as a system to replace and extend slavery; the use of the rich resources of the country by the ruling minority to intensify exploitation and suppress resistance; the enormous suffering caused by apartheid; and the rise of a great liberation struggle. It must also include the international aspects of apartheid: the forces that have profited from and sustained apartheid; and the rise of the anti-apartheid movement as one of the most significant public movements of our time.

Such a study will help in understanding and dealing with problems in other societies and in the international order. While apartheid is a unique phenomenon in many ways, and the term should not be loosely used to cover other injustices, a study of apartheid provides insights into, and encourages action on, other problems which affect human rights and hinder genuine international cooperation.

This aspect should be kept in mind so that action against apartheid and solidarity with the liberation movement are not seen merely as assistance to the black people of South Africa, ignoring the contribution that the South African struggle has made to the world. The sanctions campaign is not only to help the oppressed people in South Africa but to counter vested interests which corrupt societies in countries which collaborate with the South African regime.

Education against apartheid in formal educational institutions will need to be in a broad historical and international context.

It will need to view apartheid as a system of oppression - following slavery, colonialism and other injustices from which a large segment of humanity has suffered for centuries - and the destruction of apartheid as a step in the process of eliminating oppression and building a just international order.

It is not only South Africa that is inhabited by people of different racial origins. Africa, as Agostinho Neto pointed out, can no more be only black any more than Europe can be only white. A democratic arrangement for the living together of peoples - benefiting from diversity of cultures - is essential for all regions and for the whole world. A new and just world order cannot be built unless apartheid is eliminated and the new generation grows up in uncompromising opposition to the ideology of apartheid.

Most of the anti-apartheid activity of the past four decades can be described as essentially educational or as having a great educational value. Forty years ago, most of the world did not understand or appreciate the inhumanity of racism in South Africa or how "apartheid" sought to make it worse. It was difficult to obtain a resolution in the United Nations condemning apartheid - and those opposed included some of the liberal Western countries which are now playing a commendable role as supporters of the liberation movement.

In 1962, when the United Nations General Assembly first recommended sanctions against South Africa, not a single Western government voted in favour. Now, the great majority of Western countries support sanctions at least in principle. Every Western country has imposed some sanctions, even if symbolic.

The change is not only at the governmental level, but also in churches and other institutions. The Reverend Michael Scott was penalised by the church hierarchy for his support of the freedom movement in South Africa, Father Trevor Huddleston was recalled from South Africa and Bishop Ambrose Reeves was left without a diocese for many years. Now the world religious bodies denounce apartheid as heresy and take significant actions against it.

Apartheid has become a word that evokes detestation and no one - not even the present rulers of South Africa - wish to be known as its advocates.

This change has come, in the first place, from public education. The anti-apartheid movements and other public organisations - and many public leaders and some mass media - deserve commendation. The impact of their work has shown how determined efforts to educate and mobilise public opinion can change the attitudes of governments and institutions, and enhance the effectiveness of the United Nations. (Public mobilisation for disarmament and against nuclear weapons has in recent years provided another example which should greatly encourage non-governmental organisations).

The evolution of public education through anti- apartheid activity may be briefly recalled.

Until 1946, there was little public concern in the world even when the racist regime in South Africa massacred peaceful demonstrators (except in connection with the satyagraha of Indians led by Gandhi in 1906-14).

In 1946, with the Indian passive resistance, the African mineworkers' strike etc., a significant number of individuals and groups became concerned. Leaders like Pandit Nehru of India, Fenner Brockway and Krishna Menon in London and Paul Robeson in the United States helped publicise the struggles and aspirations of the African and Indian people in South Africa and provided platforms for their spokesmen.

It was the Defiance Campaign of 1952 which promoted wider consciousness of apartheid and led to the establishment of organisations to educate public opinion and assist those persecuted in the struggle against apartheid (e.g., Defence and Aid Fund and Africa Bureau in London, and American Committee on Africa in New York). That Campaign - which showed that the African people could organise and lead a civilised mass resistance against a brutish regime - inspired many people in the West, including prominent pacifists and humanists. Special mention may be made of the Reverend Michael Scott, the Reverend Canon L. John Collins and Father (later Archbishop) Trevor Huddleston in Britain; the Reverend George Houser in the United States; and the Reverend Gunnar Helander in Sweden. They were the main sources of public education at a time when the United Nations was unable to move forward even in verbal condemnation of apartheid because of the cold war and South Africa's place in the plans for Western alliances.

From 1958 when Africa appealed for sanctions against the South African regime, and 1960 when the Sharpeville massacre shocked world opinion, there has been a rapid growth of anti-apartheid and solidarity movements and of anti-apartheid activity by trade unions, churches, and non-governmental organisations - promoted by leaders of South African resistance who were sent into exile to secure international support. While stressing boycotts and sanctions, they took up action on many aspects of apartheid and against those who collaborate with and sustain apartheid.

They have contributed immensely, in conjunction with the struggle inside South Africa, to public education.

Consumer boycotts helped inform large numbers of people in Britain and the Nordic countries about apartheid in the early 1960s. Sports and cultural boycotts reached millions of people in many countries. Divestment campaigns in universities - with teach-ins, erection of shanties etc., - covered large segments of the academic community in Britain and the United States.

Honours to leaders of the South African struggle - notably to Nelson Mandela - have had a great educational value all over the world.

Collaboration or non-collaboration with apartheid became a national issue in many countries. A number of Western governments were obliged to revise their policies; in some countries, governments fell in the process.

Many thousands of people suffered imprisonment and police violence in these campaigns.

These campaigns, more than anything else, forced the mass media to report on the realities of apartheid and the struggle of the oppressed people. They, more than anything else, brought the issue of apartheid for discussion inside educational institutions.

The impact of this public action on the United Nations was much greater than is generally realised.

A change in the attitudes of Western governments, which was essential for meaningful action by the United Nations, could be promoted by diplomatic action of committed governments or by public opinion in their own countries. With the independence of colonies, the composition of the United Nations changed in favour of the liberation struggle and meaningful resolutions could be adopted. But debates, resolutions and votes in the United Nations by themselves have limited effect and the newly-independent countries could exert little effective pressure on the powerful Western governments. The movement within South Africa was in a process of recovery and regrouping from 1963 to the mid-1970s. At that time, it was the mobilisation of public opinion in the West - in conjunction with the efforts of African and Non-aligned governments - that led to United Nations action on the arms embargo, on boycotts, and on other aspects.

Since the mid-1970s, the upsurge in South Africa has itself helped educate world public opinion and influence policies of governments.

The effect of education of public opinion through anti-apartheid activity was not only in building an international concert of governments and the public for action against apartheid and in support of the liberation struggles in South Africa and Namibia.

Perhaps equally important have been the indirect effects of the activity - and some may be briefly indicated.

1. Promoting action against injustices in other countries:

Many years ago, it was the experience of the struggle in South Africa which persuaded Mahatma Gandhi to launch a national campaign against untouchability and disabilities of "untouchables" in India and secure not only legal equality but "affirmative action."

In 1971, the boycott initiated by the Australian student movement against apartheid sports teams developed into a major national event. Hundreds of students were jailed and beaten up. A State of Emergency was declared in Queensland to enable the apartheid rugby team to play. The sports boycott developed into a confrontation with the conservative government; the students were joined by trade unions and many churchmen and others. This soon served to sensitise public opinion not only to apartheid in South Africa but to the racial problem in Australia.

Similar examples can be found in several other countries.

2. Promoting support to liberation of other African countries:

Public education and mobilisation against apartheid, especially since the Sharpeville massacre of 1960, helped the development of solidarity with the struggles in the Portuguese colonies and in Southern Rhodesia.

3. Promoting non-racialism:

The consistent efforts of the South African liberation movement, despite all the repression by the white minority regime, to uphold non-racialism - and the solidarity from people of all racial origins around the world - has had an effect on world public opinion. It has helped promote non-racialism in other African countries and broaden anti-racial movements outside Africa.

It may be recalled that the actions of the National Party regime soon after it came to power in 1948 - the enactment of monstrous laws to dispossess the majority of the people and the ruthless repression which accompanied it - provoked fears of a racial conflict, with wide international repercussions. The title of the item sponsored by Asian-African States in the United Nations agenda from 1952 to 1961 was "the question of race conflict arising from the policies of apartheid of the government of the Union of South Africa". The liberation movement and the solidarity movement deserve tremendous credit for averting a racial conflict and promoting a broad alliance against apartheid, nationally and internationally.

4. Promoting United Nations action on human rights:

The growing concern over apartheid and the coalition built against it have helped promote action in the United Nations and other international organisations on racism in general, on social responsibility of corporations, on human rights etc. It has helped develop international law on human rights.

The annual United Nations discussions, since apartheid was included in the agenda in the wake of the Defiance Campaign, helped inform and educate public opinion. But the United Nations did not begin active efforts in that direction until 1965 when the Special Committee against Apartheid proposed dissemination of information on apartheid and United Nations action in order to counter South African propaganda. Public information had become essential as the Western governments stubbornly resisted any concrete action beyond the "voluntary" arms embargoes imposed by some of them in 1963-64.

There was considerable resistance to such information activity on the grounds that the United Nations cannot engage in "propaganda." But the initiation of this activity - in the context of what was called an "international campaign against apartheid" - enabled the United Nations to undertake active information work in later years on many other issues.

The activity remained on a very modest scale for many years, with hardly any resources, and some of the proposals made by the Special Committee in 1965, and endorsed by the General Assembly, have not yet been implemented. The Unit on Apartheid (later Centre against Apartheid) had to work under great restraints and was subject to pressures. The focus of its work was on providing factual information, disseminating papers by activists of the liberation movement and providing moral and political support to anti-apartheid activities of non-governmental organisations. Mass media coverage could be obtained occasionally, but only in some third world countries.

United Nations information policy is based on the assumption that the national governments would disseminate the information provided by the United Nations. In the case of apartheid, little cooperation could be obtained from governments of countries where the education of public opinion was crucial, namely, the main trading partners of South Africa. The Centre against Apartheid could only rely on the cooperation of anti-apartheid movements and other non-governmental organisations.

But even the modest activity of the United Nations had an impact as it helped promote anti-apartheid movements, which were often in opposition to their governments, and occasionally to publicise collaboration with apartheid and embarrass the collaborators. That led to attacks on the Centre by some governments and attempts to paralyse the work.

It was in the context of this information activity that the United Nations sought to promote production of material for use in formal educational institutions, and encouraged UNESCO to develop programmes on apartheid.

The UNESCO produced a report on the effects of apartheid on education, science and culture in 1967, at the request of the Special Committee against Apartheid. It subsequently expanded its work on apartheid.

In 1971, following consultations between UNESCO and the Special Committee, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution requesting UNESCO to prepare an "educational kit on racial discrimination and apartheid in South Africa" for "possible adaptation by national commissions of that organisation and for distribution to institutions of learning" and to consider production of "films and audio-visual material on apartheid."

Meanwhile, the British Anti-Apartheid Movement was also engaged in the preparation of an education kit for British schools, and there was consultation with UNESCO.

Since then, UNESCO has produced a substantial amount of educational and information material on apartheid - though perhaps not the "kit" envisaged in 1971. Several anti-apartheid movements, the British Defence and Aid Fund, the Washington Office on Africa etc., have also produced material for use in schools.

The struggle of the South African people and the development of the international solidarity movement have created a new situation in which the destruction of the pillars of apartheid and a transition to a democratic society in South Africa, without undue bloodshed, has become a distinct possibility. The change in the international situation, particularly the erosion of the cold war which greatly complicated the struggle of the South African people in the past four decades, can help this process.

The liberation movement has shown great statesmanship in espousing reconciliation rather than revenge against those who enforced or supported oppression, and in initiating widest public discussion and consultation on its proposals for a peaceful solution.

The translation of the new possibilities into reality will, however, need an escalation of the resistance in South Africa and of international action. Illusions about an "easy walk to freedom" would be disastrous.

Educational and information activity - on the inhumanity of apartheid, on the need for wider sanctions, on support to the liberation movement and the mass democratic movement, on exposing fake "reforms" - will need to be continued, with active efforts to reach the mass media. There is also a need to emphasise several current concerns resulting from the new situation.

1. While apartheid is universally condemned - and Western governments have often shown greater mastery of language in condemning it than African and Asian governments - there is not yet a common understanding of apartheid. The tendency to equate apartheid with its manifestations, and see great change when some laws are amended, is still widespread in the media.

Apartheid is not Mixed Marriages Act or the pass laws or the Race Classification Act. It is not even the ownership of most of the land by the white minority. The abrogation of the laws or redistribution of land will not by themselves end apartheid and white domination.

There can be no solution in South Africa without ending minority rule. A democratic transition cannot take place under the aegis of the present rulers wielding their powers of repression. Change must be made irreversible by an end to repression and to control of repressive power by the practitioners of racist domination.

2. The struggle in South Africa is a struggle for liberation with a long history. It is not a "regional conflict" fanned by external powers which can be solved by them. The great Powers can assist in a solution only by concerted action, through the United Nations, to exert all necessary pressure against the illegitimate apartheid regime to abandon repression and seek a peaceful solution in accordance with the many unanimous resolutions of the United Nations.

3. It is the prerogative of the liberation movement and the people of South Africa to negotiate a solution and to plan for a "post-apartheid" society. While others can assist at their request, any attempts to manufacture blueprints externally will only be futile or even harmful.

4. The future of South Africa will need to be decided by representatives of all its people - including the black majority which has been excluded from that right since power was transferred to the white minority in 1910 - in exercise of their right to self-determination. The present regime in Pretoria can only be a party to the negotiation of modalities for creating the necessary conditions for that purpose. Any attempt to legitimise it as a lawful government of all the people or relax sanctions against it will only encourage its intransigence, as past experience shows.

The international community has the opportunity to contribute decisively at this time to freedom in South Africa. But it must act collectively with a clear commitment to the principles which have crystallised in four decades of discussions in the United Nations.

Public education at this time must focus on support for action to enable the people of South Africa to exercise their right to self-determination in full freedom, without the intrusion of any external interests except the interest of humanity to secure the total elimination of apartheid. Education against apartheid can then evolve into education for living together "in peace with one another as good neighbours."