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From the book: Book 5: People, Places and Apartheid commissioned by The Department of Education
Zinzi Mandela at Jabulani stadium 10 February 1985 © Mayibuye Centre
The Turning Points in History project has invited four leading academics to locate the primary document presented here ”” Nelson Mandela’s statement from prison on being offered conditional release ”” within its historical context. The four writers have each examined a different aspect of the period from the 1970s through to the beginning of negotiations in 1990.
In Chapter 1, Malegapuru William Makgoba provides insight into both the internal and external resistance movements as well as the motivations of the apartheid government. He not only introduces us to some of the younger leaders such as Steve Biko and Rick Turner but also those who had been pivotal in the 1950s such as Trevor Huddleston and Oliver Tambo. Most importantly, he acknowledges the crucial importance of the emerging trade union movement. The 1973 strikes marked a decisive turning point in our history, breaking through the cloud of repression of the 1960s.
Phil Bonner, in Chapter 2, gives particular insights into what led to the major revolt in Soweto in 1976 ”” an uprising of students that inspired the oppressed all over the country. It was this spark that made it natural for Nelson Mandela to instruct his daughter Zinzi to read his message to the people of Soweto. An examination of the 1976 uprisings also gives us a sense of the local organisations associated with the Black Consciousness Movement that shook loose the walls of fear surrounding the oppressed. Sean Field takes up the story in the Western Cape context. Chapter 3 describes the uprising of the coloured communities in that part of the country. It is against a backdrop of school boycotts, workers’ strikes, a bus boycott and the dramatic launch of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in this region of the country that Nelson Mandela’s statement was read in Soweto. Using extracts from interviews with UDF activists, Field gives us an idea of the tensions within different strands of the resistance as well as the difficulties that these communities had in defining their identity.
In Chapter 4, Noor Nieftagodien describes the uprising in the Vaal from September to November 1984 as a crucial turning point in the resistance. A series of stayaways culminating in one of the country’s biggest stayaways on 5 and 6 November 1984 shook the apartheid government and employers, and gave confidence to the majority. Nieftagodien provides us with a substantial history of the emergence of the trade union federation as well as the evolution of the student movement at the time. Beyond this, he shows how the government’s political decision not to provide housing in cities exacerbated tensions, with housing and the provision of basic amenities becoming a central form of control exercised by the state. This gives considerable perspective on the difficulties that were to be faced by the new democratic dispensation.
These four pieces provide the reader with different slivers of South African history. Together, these slivers create a compelling overview of some of the key events and trends of this momentous period. This book does not pretend to be comprehensive, touching on each and every historical event of the time. However, anybody who reads these four pieces will get a good overview of the dynamics of that period.
On 31 January 1985 the State President of South Africa, P.W. Botha, speaking in Parliament, offered Nelson Mandela his freedom on condition that he “unconditionally rejected violence as a political weapon”. This was the sixth offer of release reported to have been made to Mandela. Previous offers were conditional on his going to live in the Transkei bantustan. He rejected all these offers on the grounds that he rejected the bantustans and all who collaborated in their establishment and maintenance. Mandela’s response to the latest offer was read on his behalf by his daughter Zinzi to a mass meeting in Jabulani Stadium, Soweto, on 10 February 1985. This text was first published by the ANC in London, and is reproduced below.
“I am not prepared to sell the birthright of the people to be free.” On Friday my mother and our attorney saw my father at Pollsmoor Prison to obtain his answer to Botha’s offer of conditional release. The prison authorities attempted to stop this statement being made but he would have none of this and made it clear that he would make the statement to you, the people.
Strangers like Bethell from England and Professor Dash from the United States have in recent weeks been authorised by Pretoria to see my father without restriction, yet Pretoria cannot allow you, the people, to hear what he has to say directly. He should be here himself to tell you what he thinks of this statement by Botha. He is not allowed to do so. My mother, who also heard his words, is also not allowed to speak to you today.
My father and his comrades at Pollsmoor Prison send their greetings to you, the freedom-loving people of this our tragic land, in the full confidence that you will carry on the struggle for freedom. He and his comrades at Pollsmoor Prison send their very warmest greetings to Bishop Desmond Tutu. Bishop Tutu has made it clear to the world that the Nobel Peace Prize belongs to you who are the people. We salute him.
My father and his comrades at Pollsmoor Prison are grateful to the United Democratic Front who without hesitation made this venue available to them so that they could speak to you today. My father and his comrades wish to make this statement to you, the people, first. They are clear that they are accountable to you and to you alone, and that you should hear their views directly and not through others. My father speaks not only for himself and for his comrades at Pollsmoor Prison, but he hopes he also speaks for all those in jail for their opposition to apartheid, for all those who are banished, for all those who are in exile, for all those who suffer under apartheid, for all those who are opponents of apartheid and for all those who are oppressed and exploited.
Throughout our struggle there have been puppets who have claimed to speak for you. They have made this claim, both here and abroad. They are of no consequence. My father and his colleagues will not be like them. My father says:
“I am a member of the African National Congress. I have always been a member of the African National Congress and I will remain a member of the African National Congress until the day I die. Oliver Tambo is much more than a brother to me. He is my greatest friend and comrade for nearly fifty years. If there is any one amongst you who cherishes my freedom, Oliver Tambo cherishes it more, and I know that he would give his life to see me free. There is no difference between his views and mine.
“I am surprised at the conditions that the government wants to impose on me. I am not a violent man. My colleagues and I wrote in 1952 to Malan asking for a round table conference to find a solution to the problems of our country, but that was ignored. When Strijdom was in power, we made the same offer. Again it was ignored. When Verwoerd was in power we asked for a national convention for all the people in South Africa to decide on their future. This, too, was in vain.
“It was only then, when all other forms of resistance were no longer open to us, that we turned to armed struggle. Let Botha show that he is different to Malan, Strijdom and Verwoerd. Let him renounce violence. Let him say that he will dismantle apartheid. Let him unban the people’s organisation, the African National Congress. Let him free all who have been imprisoned, banished or exiled for their opposition to apartheid. Let him guarantee free political activity so that people may decide who will govern them.
“I cherish my own freedom dearly, but I care even more for your freedom. Too many have died since I went to prison. Too many have suffered for the love of freedom. I owe it to their widows, to their orphans, to their mothers and to their fathers who have grieved and wept for them. Not only I have suffered during these long, lonely, wasted years. I am not less life-loving than you are. But I cannot sell my birthright, nor am I prepared to sell the birthright of the people to be free. I am in prison as the representative of the people and of your organisation, the African National Congress, which was banned.
“What freedom am I being offered while the organisation of the people remains banned? What freedom am I being offered when I may be arrested on a pass offence? What freedom am I being offered to live my life as a family with my dear wife who remains in banishment in Brandfort? What freedom am I being offered when I must ask for permission to live in an urban area? What freedom am I being offered when I need a stamp in my pass to seek work? What freedom am I being offered when my very South African citizenship is not respected?
“Only free men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts. Herman Toivo ja Toivo, when freed, never gave any undertaking, nor was he called upon to do so.
“I cannot and will not give any undertaking at a time when I and you, the people, are not free. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated. I will return.”