Liberation Movement in South Africa

Title: Discuss the role of liberation movement in Southern Africa in the struggle for independence, focussing on their origins, challenges and achievements during the liberation struggle, their ascendancy to government and their transformation into ruling parties.

Is liberation movement in South Africa a nationalist or class struggle? Stated simply and briefly, the problem in Southern Africa is one of the liberation of some twenty three million indigenous people residing in south Africa, Namibia, and Zimbabwe. But they do not have much knowledge about what it it, they have a very blurred image if the subject. There are currently three competing and contradictory views of liberation. A widely held view is that of the African Nationalist Movements.This liberation movement is similar to those that won independence in most African colonies in the 1960’s and are supported by various groups in china. The liberation of Southern Africa was one of the major political developments of the 20th century. The demise of Portuguese colonial rule, the end of white settler domination, and the dismantling of the apartheid regime had far-reaching consequences not only for the people in the region but for the global community. The Struggles for Freedom in Southern Africa Collection, focuses on the complex and varied liberation struggles in the region, with an initial concentration on six nations: Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa, Namibia, and Zimbabwe. Pan Africanist congress of Azania and South West African people’s organization are active liberation movements in the southern Africa.There are some movements that have already achieved their independence while others are still fighting for it. The Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC), was a South African liberation movement, and is now a minor political party. The PAC was formally launched on 6 April 1959 at Orlando Communal Hall in Soweto. A number of African National Congress (ANC) members broke away because they objected to the substitution of the 1949 programme of action with the Freedom Charter adopted in 1955. Further they objected to the inclusion of other national groups such as the Communist Party of South Africa. The South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) is a political party and former liberation movement in Namibia. It has been the governing party in Namibia since achieving independence in 1990. The party won 75.1% of popular votes and 55 out of 78 seats in the parliamentary election held on November 15, 2004.Though the organization rejected the term "South West Africa" and insisted on replacing it with "Namibia", the organization's own name—derived from the territory's old name—was already too deeply rooted to be changed. However, the original full name is no longer used and only the acronym remains; the party's official name today is SWAPO Party of Namibia.

At the end of the 1960s, six African colonies remained. Of the six, five were settler colonies, that is colonies in which the interests power of the European settler community kept the majority African populations from gaining their political freedom. Of these six countries, five were in Southern Africa: Angola (Portugal/settler) Mozambique (Portugal/settler), Namibia (South Africa/settler), South Africa (settler) and Zimbabwe (British/settler). The small Portuguese colony of Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde in West Africa was the sixth colony.Just as in other African colonies, African nationalist movements had formed in each of these countries in the 1940s and 1950s. For many years, the white settlers in these colonies had the right to vote. They used this vote to elect representatives who passed laws that protected the power of the European settlers and discriminated against Africans. African nationalist leaders believed that if franchise was the right of all citizens, the majority population would use their vote to bring in majority, independent African rule. All they wanted was to obtain their independence. Beginning in the early 1960s, banned nationalist parties in each settler colony transformed themselves into liberation movements for armed struggle against the settler regimes. This transition to the armed struggle was not an easy one. The armed forces of the settler regimes were well equipped and well trained. For their part, the newly formed liberation movements had little money to purchase weapons and to train their soldiers. Moreover, when the liberation movements sought help from the outside world, neither the United States nor the former colonial powers in Europe were willing to give support. They were rejected and not give any help. Their proposal was not considered at all.

The liberation movements were fighting in order to attain independence for their sub country. They wanted freedom from colonization and therefore they had to create liberation movements in which they acted collectively to achieve freedom. “The wind of change is blowing through the continent and whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact.” H. Macmillan, B. Leaders of liberation movements were firing up in the fight for African decolonization. Kenya’s Kenyatta before and after his arrest, contributed to the speedy decolonization through KANU and the Pan-African Federation created with his counterpart Nkhruma, both were powerful orators capable of stirring the masses with their ringing denunciations of colonial oppression and their demands for freedom and land. These political parties sought peaceful, constitutional change. That is, the primary aim of the nationalist parties was to change the constitutions of the settler colonies to recognize the rights of the majority African population. One of the popular slogans of these parties was the demand for One Man, One Vote. Mandela was just one of many African leaders who spent years in jail as a result of their demands for freedom, majority rule, and independence for their countries.
The liberation movements of the southern Africa have received a lot of help from the Swedish Government. The Swedish government allocated them with R 1190000 in 1971 to be used for humanitarian purposes. The liberation movements have had significant achievements since they have been established. The recent achievements of the recent preeminents south African liberation movement is the African National Congress. This liberation movement is now seventy five years old. This movement has risen in power and influence. It can reasonably be said to be contending as an alternative power to the existing state. The liberation movements play an important role in the southern Africa. This is so because these movements are supporting the states politically and helping them to get freedom.

https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2022/298/Liberation_Shamyurira.pdf?sequence=1 http://about.jstor.org/content-collections/primary-sources/struggles-freedom-southern-africa http://snowwhite88.hubpages.com/hub/WHY-DID-THE-DECOLONISATION-OF-AFRICA-TAKE-PLACE-SO-RAPIDLY-IN-THE-YEARS-AROUND-1960s