No Easy Walk to Freedom

The speech and essay in these first two chapters introduce the aims of the movement and explain why it was necessary by contextualizing the situation in South Africa—notably, the conditions that Black South Africans faced and the role of the government and ruling elite in actively promoting white supremacy. These chapters also introduce the important themes of mass mobilization and unity and shifting strategies and tactics. 

The address to the Transvaal ANC indicates not only that the movement was a continuation of earlier resistance to white domination, but that its primary strategy at this stage was to secure the Congress apparatus by promoting the masses to its ranks. In the address, Mandela connects the movement of his day to earlier resistance to the establishment of the Union of South Africa: a parliamentary constitutional monarchy that was a part of the British Commonwealth and in which Black and Coloured (multiracial) peoples had no representation. He suggests that the formation of the ANC in 1912 propelled the resistance struggle when he opens by acknowledging that from that year forward, African people have “raised their voices to condemn the grinding poverty of the people, the low wages, the acute shortage of land, the inhuman exploitation, and the whole policy of White domination” (3). This clarifies that the aim of the movement was to resist white supremacy, which was necessary not only on its own merits but because of the conditions that white supremacy had produced. 

Of these conditions, the speech devotes particular attention to Black African poverty and the dire economic situation for the entire country. For example, Mandela states: 

The purchasing power of the people is progressively declining and the cost of living is rocketing [. . .] The people are too poor to have enough food to feed their families and children. They cannot afford sufficient clothing, housing, and medical care. They are denied the right to security and where allowances are paid in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, and old age they are far too low for survival (7). 

Mandela connects these conditions to government policy. He notes that the “insane policies of the Government” have deterred foreign capital investments in South Africa (7), resulting in business closures and thus increasing unemployment. When he discusses the Native Labour Bill, he explains that its suppression of African trade unions is the suppression of workers’ means of improving their conditions (8), which implies also the suppression of wages. His mention of the Bantu Education Bill includes the assertion that “[i]t might well be that the children of those who criticize the Government and who fight its policies will be taught how to drill rocks in the mines and how to plough potatoes on the farms at Bethal” (8), once again suggesting the government’s efforts to keep Black people from improving their financial situations. These examples connect workers and the business class in the liberation struggle as fellow targets of unjust government policy. The connection foreshadows more detailed explanations in later chapters about the grounds for interracial and interclass solidarity and contributes to the theme of mass mobilization and unity. 

Mandela’s critique of the LP includes attention to its convergence with the Government in terms of controlling and concentrating the wealth of South Africa within the white population:

They stand for the retention of the cheap labour system and of the subordinate colonial status of the non-European masses together with the Nationalist Government, whose class interests are identical with theirs. In practice they acquiesce in the slavery of the people, low wages, mass unemployment, the squalid tenements in the locations and shanty-towns (18).

Once again, the idea of mass mobilization and unity emerges as Mandela refers to “non-Europeans” rather than specifying only the Black African population. Throughout his life, Mandela would view interracial solidarity as key to the movement and would repeatedly stress that the movement was not racialist (18). The Chapter 1 speech, for example, discusses the convergence of “African, Indian, and Coloured struggles” on a central goal of preserving their organizations in order to represent the masses of people (10).

Mandela’s ideas of interracial solidarity were not limited to non-Europeans. As Mandela closes his essay in Chapter 2, he welcomes sincere white allyship in “the overthrow of fascism and the establishment of democratic forms of government” (18). He does so, however, only after explaining why the LP is not a proper ally to the liberation movement. He claims that it has only paid lip service to the ideals of democracy, equality, and human rights and that it has failed to follow through on ensuring those ideals. Earlier, as he alludes to the shift in strategies and tactics of the movement, he acknowledges the mistakes of local ANC chapters in not properly vetting new members and thus being subject to infiltration and deception by those seeking to undermine the organization under the guise of support (12). He shares with his audience how to distinguish between “friends of the people” and “enemies and shady characters” (12). Thus, the two texts illustrate that drawing the masses into the resistance struggle required careful and sober planning, including not only vetting those who claimed to support the struggle, but also analyzing the conditions on the ground. 

Mandela (at least at this point in his life) viewed the LP as falling short because it continued to insist on a constitutional strategy for resolving the issue of apartheid when on-the-ground conditions called for a shift. His 1953 essay suggests this inattention to the conditions of the majority population: 

To propose in the South African context that democrats limit themselves to constitutional means of struggle is to ask the people to submit to laws enacted by a minority parliament whose composition is essentially a denial of democracy to the overwhelming majority of the population (17). 

One of Mandela’s primary messages throughout his life would be that political movements must keep in touch with reality. He posits in Chapter 2 that the reality is that constitutional means of change have been barred (17), and he says in Chapter 1 that government repression has made “public mass meetings, press statements, and leaflets” dangerous and difficult methods of resistance (6). Mandela’s attention to these realities informed his advocacy for shifts in approach. The creation of the “M” Plan in collaboration with the SAIC encapsulates the transition to working on a more local and collaborative level to recruit people to the struggle and to employ militant resistance outside of the constitutional framework and governmental law.