Protest and Challenge to African Apartheid

2123 Words9 Pages
Since the onset of colonization black South Africans have resisted and challenged the rule of whites. With the imposition of the apartheid system in South Africa many Africans gained common ground under which they protested their submissive stature. There were many ways in which Africans resisted and challenged the political, economical, and social constraints that were forced upon them during the apartheid ranging from nonviolent to violent. The switch from widespread non-violent protest to violent protest was inevitable. The failure of nonviolent resistance against the apartheid state along with increased violent repressive measures by the state ultimately lead to violent resistance by black South Africans. This switch to violence would also help garner international recognition and support for ending apartheid. Evidenced by the failures of nonviolent protests such as the Defiance Campaign, in addition to the stark reactions taken by the government and police, help to exemplify the inevitable shift. In accordance, such acts of aggression by the government in scenarios such as Sharpville and Soweto put the anti-apartheid movement on an international scale and help to explain how violence was a necessary form of resistance. The Defiance Campaign launched by the African National Congress (ANC) in 1952 worked to challenge the apartheid state by directly opposing certain segregation laws, namely that of the Pass laws. ANC leaders worked to gather willing defiers who were diciplined and would hold themselves true to the nonviolent nature of the campaign. On "the first day of the campaign, nearly 140 defiers were arrested for deliberately breaking one or more of the six target laws... The regime quickly fashioned new repressive measures, providing for stiff penalties, including lashings, for anyone who broke a law by way of protest."1 The stiff repartations by the
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