Resorting to Violence: Did the ANC have a choice?

Explain the reasons behind the creation of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK).  Do you think adopting violence as a method strengthened or weakened the anti-apartheid movement?

Adopting violence as the movement’s revised strategy after almost fifty years of preaching nonviolent resistance was undoubtedly a complicated decision with immense ramifications.  On one hand, the choice to use violence demonstrated to ANC supporters that nonviolence could not destroy Apartheid which is demoralizing.  It showed that they were not strong and united enough to conquer violence without partaking in it.  On the other hand, the ANC simply did not have a choice.  They would not achieve their vision of a free state for all people without using more aggressive means to achieve it.  Due to the force of the National Party, violence did strengthen the anti-apartheid movement because it gave the ANC the teeth needed to hold the attention of the Nationalists and eventually bring them to the negotiation table. 

In 1961, Mandela announced that nonviolence may no longer be the most effective means of achieving the ANC’s goals.  Although their boycotts, protests, and stay-at-homes showed the widespread support of the movement, these events were not eliciting a response from the National Party.  When the anti-Apartheid movement first began, Mandela stated that “We should employ the methods demanded by the conditions…In this case…any attempts at violence by us would be devastatingly crushed.  This [makes] nonviolence a practical necessity rather than an option” (Mandela, 127).  For the ANC, nonviolence was a temporary tactic.  It worked to some extent, but it was not enough when “the government reaction [was] to crush by naked force [the] nonviolent struggle” (Mandela, 270).  The ANC leaders could not stop resisting Apartheid, but at the same time, they could not continue to let their supporters be crushed by the government.  If they wanted to one day live in a free South Africa, they saw no other option but to add a component of violence into the movement.    

MK’s creation was carefully planned so that the principles of the ANC would be upheld.  The ANC decided that sabotage would be the most effective form of violence because it targeted institutions of the National Party, not people.  Mandela was clear that a civil war was not the answer, and it would only exacerbate the divide between races.  Thus, the ANC tried to use violence cautiously which was a smoother transition from nonviolence, but still alerted the Nationalists.  As the ANC hoped, the government reacted to the MK.  Although it caused them to be more brutal in their own attacks, the ANC had effectively “shown them [that they] were not going to sit back any longer” (Mandela, 286).  The MK continued their attacks until negotiations finally began in 1990.  Even with the use of violence, it still took 30 years to begin the negotiations, thus it is hard to say if nonviolent resistance would have eventually been effective.  But, the ANC could not wait for that day to come.  They were being crushed, and they had to respond with force to be heard.