adopted to condemn all black efforts to defeat
injustice. Yet Mandela’s words at his trial had
expressed a different ideal; he spoke of a:
democratic and free society in which all
persons live together in harmony and with
equal opportunities... It is an ideal which I
hope to live for and to achieve, but if need be,
an ideal for which I am prepared to die.
Mandela became an inspiration for black Africans,
though he was completely shut off from them for
twenty-eight years, twenty of them in the harsh
conditions of Robben Island.
The white leaders of the independent South
African Republic from 1960 onwards tried to
promote a more positive image of their policies.
‘Apartheid’ was dropped in favour of what was
called ‘separate development’. The new policy
was to develop the black reserves into ‘home-
lands’ and eventually into ‘independent’ black
nations, which of course would remain totally
dependent for their livelihood on South Africa.
Then the whites would be able to claim that they
were ‘democratic’ and no longer denying black
people political rights, for these they would enjoy
in their own nations. The homelands, or bantus-
tans, were fragmented regions of land quite inca-
pable of accommodating or sustaining the
majority of the South African black population.
Yet, by making every black a citizen of a bantus-
tan whether he lived there or in the Republic, the
black majority in the Republic would be turned
into migrants who were not entitled to political
rights there. In the 1960s and 1970s this policy
was pushed vigorously ahead. Self-government
and later ‘independence’ were bestowed on
Transkei in 1976, on Bophutatswana in 1977, on
Venda in 1979 and on Ciskei in 1981. The inter-
national community has refused to recognise their
independence. Six other states have been granted
self-government but not independence. The most
important was KwaZulu; its chief minister
Mangosuthu Buthelezi wished to maintain
regional autonomy in a South Africa with major-
ity black rule. He has worked within the law to
assert black rights. He rejected the socialist ide-
ology of the ANC and is determined to maintain
Zulu separateness in increasingly bitter struggles
with the ANC.
Some attempt was made in the 1960s and
1970s to improve conditions in the homelands
by increasing government spending. Although
there is a certain amount of industry and trade
to provide a livelihood for the black Africans, most
of them must find employment in the Republic,
either as immigrant workers from the bantustans
or as permitted residents in townships. The
migrant worker is often separated from his family
for long periods but the earnings he remits home
constituted in the mid-1980s nearly half the
income of the so-called black nations. Continuous
repression by the police has seen the forcible
removal of some 3.5 million black people to their
bantustans.
Bantustans and the banning of the ANC did
not solve South Africa’s problem, even though
police repression and the military power of white
Africa made a black seizure of power impossible.
Black leaders continued to organise movements
against the whole system. One of these, a non-
white student movement led by Steve Biko, had
much success, advocating black consciousness and
non-cooperation with whites. Biko was arrested
by police in 1977 and his death in custody, after
brutal police interrogation, further damaged the
Republic’s reputation. From their exile, the frag-
mented black militant opposition, the ANC and
the PAC, were able to perform some acts of sab-
otage; as guerrillas they were ineffective, but they
kept the whole question of black political and
economic rights on the agenda of South African
politics.
Unrest which broke out among black people
in the overcrowded townships, such as Soweto
outside Johannesburg, owed less to black political
organisation than to black resentments. Like the
rest of the world, the South African economy
suffered from the recession of the mid-1970s.
Recession always hits the black population hardest
and in 1973 there were massive black strikes.
After Sharpeville, Soweto came to stand for the
worst aspects of white repression. In 1976, in
Soweto, schoolchildren began demonstrating
against being forced to use Afrikaans as the
medium of instruction. On 16 June, 15,000 black
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