Spear of the Nation: The Legacy of South Africa’s uMkhonto weSizwe

An end, a beginning

In an interview with Brian Widlake on May 31, 1961, Mandela declared a strategic shift as far as the struggle against apartheid was concerned. Up until then, the government, in reaction to the ANC’s stay-at-home protest, “[ordered] a general mobilization, [armed] the white community, and [arrested] tens of thousands of Africans,” according to Mandela. That closed a chapter in the ANC’s methods of political struggle. “There are many people who feel that it is useless and futile for us to continue talking peace and non-violence against a government whose reply is only savage attacks on unarmed and defenseless people,” Mandela’s speech concluded.

On December 16, 1961, the uMkhonto weSizwe, also referred to as “MK,” was formed, exactly a century after the Battle of Blood River, where Afrikaners emerged victorious over the Zulu nation. It had been clear through various events throughout the 1950s and ‘60s that the National Party-led state was intent on isolating Black people from the day-to-day running of the country, something that had been ongoing since the dawn of the 20th century, and even earlier. This nonviolent approach, favored by ANC leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Chief Albert Luthuli, had caused deep divisions within the Black struggle. It splintered the party at the core when Robert Sobukwe went ahead to form the Pan Africanist Congress, following the adoption of the Freedom Charter in 1955. The 1960 Sharpeville massacre that left 69 people dead, 10 of whom were children, catalyzed the shift.

The liberation leaders who escaped the clampdown fled the country, but continued to re-organise resistance from outside. While the details differ on who exactly originated the idea of active resistance, what is clear is that Chief Luthuli was very much for it. He uttered these words at the ANC’s National Executive meeting in Durban: "If anyone thinks I am a pacifist, let him try to take my chickens and he will know how wrong he is!” He is the one credited with suggesting that the military should exist as an autonomous wing of the ANC.

The main motive of the MK was to, "hit back by all means within our power in defense of our people, our future and our freedom."

From amateurs to seasoned fighters

Mandela had traveled the length and breadth of the African continent with the aim of drumming up military support for the newly-formed organization. MK’s first attack on state infrastructure was disastrous.

“We were very amateurish. The so-called bomb that I placed in the magistrate’s court in Johannesburg — it was infantile,” says the former political activist, Ben Turok. Mandela and 10 senior leaders of the MK were arrested and charged with sabotage in what came to be known as the Rivonia Trial. The outcome, which was a life sentence, led to movements such as MK being forced to go underground.

The student uprising in 1976 birthed a new wave of freedom fighters who were willing to give their life for the cause. Chris Hani, who had been serving as the General Secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP), emerged as a capable leader of the MK in exile, an organization he had joined shortly after he graduated from university in 1962.

He was arrested, and sentenced to 18 months in prison. He managed to go underground, and eventually got to the then-Soviet Union to receive military training at the International Lenin School that was re-established in 1961. Hani himself traveled to Moscow in 1964. The school is where the plan for Operation Mayibuye was formulated, which led to the formation of MK cadres in Morogoro. The blueprint for these warm relations with the Soviets were laid by ANC leaders, Oliver Tambo and Moses Kotane, who were invited for “a period of rest” in Moscow.

Was it all worth it?

Those were the glory years of Pan-Africanist ideals and international solidarity, a solidarity that met its demise when Black consciousness died a slow death followingSteve Biko’sdemise in 1977. Hani himself never got to see the dawn of the supposed freedom. He was shot and killed at his house in 1993.

To this day, there are former MK operatives who live in abject poverty, angry, depressed, and suffering from the PTSD inflicted by decades spent away from their land, in camps where living conditions were unsavory, constantly fearing for their lives. They were sold a lie, and made to suffer for choosing to go and fight for a freedom that is still far from being realized. Looking at the history of the struggle, the meaning of what it meant to be in exile, leaves one with burning questions and little answers. Was it all worth it?