Black Consciousness Movement

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Black Consciousness Movement ( BCM for short ; German  for "Movement of Black Self-Confidence" ) was a political movement of black South Africans in a network of over 70 individual organizations.

story

prehistory

As early as 1946, the first chairman of the ANC Youth League , Anton Muziwakhe Lembede , called on black South Africans to regain self-confidence. The Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), which split off from the African National Congress (ANC) in 1959 , also pursued the goal of improving the situation of blacks without the involvement of other sections of the population. In 1960 the ANC and PAC were declared illegal. The armed arm of the ANC and the South African Communist Party , Umkhonto we Sizwe , could only carry out a few guerrilla actions, so that the resistance against apartheid-Government largely came to a standstill. In addition, the main ANC leaders in the Rivonia Trial were sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964 .

In 1967 the University Christian Movement (UCM) was founded, a forerunner of the movement under the umbrella of the Anglican Church and its Archbishop Robert Selby Taylor . It was created in Grahamstown in July 1967 after the non-white students were discriminated against at a congress of the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). The first chairman was Basil Moore ; Barney Pityana was one of the founders . Medical student and student leader Steve Biko was also a member of the UCM. After just one year, UCM had 30 branches. In July 1968 the second congress was held in Stutterheim . The basis was the liberation theology and the works of the Brazilian pedagogue Paolo Freire and the American James H. Cone , the founder of black theology. The UCM existed until 1972.

Development and goals

In addition to Pityana, Steve Biko was one of the founders of the Black Consciousness movement. An important pillar of the movement was the South African Students' Organization (SASO), which was founded in 1968 and was active at many South African universities and colleges. It was initially headed by Steve Biko and has gained great influence among black students. The aim of the Black Consciousness movement was to increase the self-confidence of the black majority of the population towards the ruling white upper class. In doing so, she deliberately renounced the support of white liberals. They rejected all systems that made blacks “strangers in their own country”. The movement saw itself as nonviolent and represented a basic Christian attitude. The term black consciousness is related to the term double consciousness, which the US-American WEB Du Bois coined for his black compatriots - the term refers to their existence as Africans in a European country. The Black Consciousness movement was also influenced by Marcus Garvey , Frantz Fanon, and Léopold Senghor , who had similar goals. The black power movement of blacks in the USA also served as a model. The movement also counted the Indians and Coloreds among the “blacks”, who were also suppressed by the white government.

The most important organizations within the Black Consciousness Movement were (in brackets the date of foundation):

  • ASSECA, Association for the Educational and Cultural Advancement of African People (1967)
  • BAS, Black Art Studios (1972)
  • BAWU, Black Allied Workers' Union (1972)
  • BCP, Black Community Programs (1972)
  • BWP, Black Workers' Project (1972)
  • ELEC, Edendale Lay Ecumenical Center (1965)
  • MDALI, Music, Drama, Art and Literature Institute (1972)
  • NWA, Natal Workshop for African Advancement (1972)
  • SABTU, South African Black Theater Union (1972)
  • SASO, South African Students' Organization (1968)

Actions

The Black Consciousness Movement was primarily active as a grassroots movement. For this purpose, Black Community Programs were founded in the townships from 1970 . They were used to run health stations, support small businesses and hold adult education courses . The activists at the time also included the doctor Mamphela Ramphele and Mapetla Mohapi . The author Adam Small , a Colored , acted as the speaker for a time .

In 1972 the umbrella organization Black Peoples Convention (BPC) was founded. In the same year the movement was involved in strikes, especially in the Durban area . In 1973 the government banned most of the leadership of SASO and BPC, including Biko.

The growing awareness from this movement found a growing influence in the economy as well. Black unions had been excluded from South Africa's mixed- ethnic trade union confederation ( TUCSA ) since 1969 . In 1973 especially in Natal there was an unexpectedly strong development of strikes with 246 labor disputes, which continued until 1974. In the same year, with government support, the absorption of black unions under the umbrella of TUCSA was resumed. The white political elite hoped that this would weaken the resolute black union groups, especially the Black Allied Worker's Union , for whom merging with white partner organizations had become unthinkable.

The movement published several magazines, including the Black Review, Black Voice, Black Viewpoint, and Black Perspective.

In 1974 the SASO spoke out explicitly against any form of racism . That same year, despite a ban, the Black Consciousness movement held several peaceful demonstrations in support of the Mozambican liberation organization Frelimo , which was hostile to the South African government. Numerous leaders of the movement were subsequently arrested under the Terrorism Act and the Rioutous Assemblies Act . The SASO official and president of the Southern African Students Movement (SASM), Abram Onkgopotse Tiro , fled to Botswana and was killed there by a package bomb sent by the South African secret service BOSS . The South African judiciary led lengthy trials, including those against the Pretoria Twelve and the SASO Nine, to which the later ANC minister and Congress of the People chairman Mosiuoa Lekota belonged. The SASO Nine trial began in 1975; In December 1976, the nine defendants were sentenced to six and five years in prison for “terrorism”, respectively, although they had not committed any acts of violence. The explanatory statement stated that through the expression of thoughts, ideas and desires for liberation - "by expressing thoughts, ideas and wishes for liberation" - they had perpetrated terrorism. Back then, Biko was banned from his hometown King William's Town and was unable to take part in the demonstrations.

In 1976 the movement supported the student uprising in Soweto . The government had planned to increase the proportion of Afrikaans as the language of instruction - this ran counter to the goals of the BCM. Steve Biko was arrested on August 18, 1977 and so badly mistreated by police in prison that he died on September 12, 1977. A month later, all 17 organizations that were part of the movement were declared illegal. With that, the movement formally ceased to exist.

aftermath

Some activists joined the still illegal ANC, and later some of them became members of the United Democratic Front (UDF), such as Popo Molefe , who had belonged to the BPC from 1973 and then to the AZAPO. Cyril Ramaphosa , from 1974 SASO chairman at the University of the North in Pietersburg , joined the trade union umbrella organization Cosatu . In exile, the Marxist organization Black Consciousness Movement of Azania existed from 1980 . The Azanian People's Organization (AZAPO), founded in 1978, invokes the movement's guidelines. In 1983 she founded the National Forum, which was more radical but less effective than the UDF. The writer Don Mattera , who was also active in the Black Consciousness movement, was one of its members.

Several former members of the movement got into high government offices after the end of apartheid in 1994. Popo Molefe and Tokyo Sexwale were prime ministers of a province, while Ramaphosa had been deputy president of South Africa since 2014 and president since 2018. AZAPO won one seat in the South African parliamentary elections in 2014. Mamphela Ramphele founded the Agang South Africa party in 2013 , which received two seats in the 2014 elections.

In 1998 the Steve Biko Foundation was established.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gottfried Wellmer (Ed.): Documents of the South African Liberation Movement (= ISSA - scientific series 6). Informationsstelle Südliches Afrika eV, Bonn 1977, ISBN 3-921614-38-4 , p. 205.
  2. ^ A b Peter Randall : South Africa's Future. Christians show new ways . (Final report of the Study Project on Christianity in Apartheid Society ), Bonn, 1974, p. 54, ISBN 3-921314-09-7
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Black Consciousness Movement at sahistory.org.za (English), accessed on October 21, 2014.
  4. ↑ a b c University Christian Movement at sahistory.org.za (English), accessed on October 20, 2014.
  5. ^ Robert Ross: A Concise History of South Africa. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, ISBN 978-0-521-72026-7 , p. 151. Digitized
  6. ↑ Definition at education-portal.com (English), accessed on October 24, 2014.
  7. ↑ Khaba Mkhize: Enos Zwelabantu Sikhakhane (1917-1993) . In: Natalia 23/24 (1993/1994), online at www.natalia.org.za (English)
  8. ↑ a b History of the BCM, aftermath with a focus on the National Forum at nelsonmandela.org (English), accessed on October 22, 2014.
  9. ^ Reinhard Rode: Change in South Africa . Institute for African Studies, Hamburg 1976, pp. 89–90
  10. ↑ Black Community Programs at sahistory.org.za (English), accessed on October 24, 2014.
  11. ↑ Portrait of the BPC at nelsonmandela.org (English), accessed on October 22, 2014.
  12. ↑ Brief report from the establishment in 1980 at sahistory.org.za (English), accessed on October 30, 2014
  13. ↑ Portrait of Mattera at sahistory.org.za (English), accessed on October 24, 2014.
  14. ↑ Foundation website , accessed on October 24, 2014.