Oliver Tambo: Year of the Spear

Oliver Tambo: Year of the Spear

(Extracts from a New Year Message by Comrade President Oliver Tambo on the Occasion of January 8, 1979, the 67th Anniversary of the African National Congress of South Africa)

“As we mark and observe this anniversary of our liberation movement, the African National Congress, the air still resounds with the echo and whine of bullets of Umkhonto we Sizwe cadres who have during this past year been striking a series of telling blows against the enemy. … But, indisputably, we are making significant progress towards the attainment of our cherished and historic goal of liberation in our country. More than ever before, we are confident of victory.”

“The churches have in the past encouraged and participated in the practice of violence against our people by urging and collaborating with apartheid, itself a brutally violent system which can have no future. Recently, however, to significant measure, church leaders are identifying themselves with the cause of justice, regardless of the consequences.

“Many among them, in South Africa and abroad, have come to realise that however much they abhor all violence, a violent system, defended and upheld with unrestrained use of armed force, does not lend itself to peaceful ways of dismantling it. On the contrary, it can only breed counter-violence – at the very least, as perfectly natural process. But what is more, systems of the South African racist type have outlived their time by decades. There is no place for them today, except perhaps as detonators of large-scale war.”

“We have all failed to reach our cherished goal of peace the soft way. It is clearly impossible to avoid the hard way to peace.”

“In our message to our people today, we call attention to the lesson of our own history, our own times; to the reality of our own situation: NOTHING WILL CHANGE except at the instance of the majority of our people of all races and social strata: NOTHING WILL CHANGE without enduring and sustained sacrifice on our part. NOTHING – NO FORCE ON EARTH, can deny us the victory of our just and united struggle.”

“Let us in South Africa learn to stop being Bantus, Coloureds, Indians and Whites. Let us be what we are, Africans in Africa. Let those who are committed racists, who came to this continent determined to keep Africans in chains, to be perpetual white masters over Blacks – let them persist in their role as foreigners on African soil. But the ANC, the majority of us in South Africa, supported by the world community, will continue to convince them by our struggle that there is no longer any place in Africa for the enemies of Africa, and no longer any place in the world community for racists.”

“In looking forward to the challenging tasks of the next three years, we cannot overlook the year of the great Isandlwana. One hundred years ago, King Cetshwayo’s people’s army spoke to the invading enemy with their spears. At the battle of Isandlwana, it engaged and defeated the pride of the British colonial army – a feat which has gone down in history as one of the most glorious and spectacular achievements in the world struggles to resist foreign domination. Faced with the might of superior arms our heroic warriors knew no fear. They shed rivers of blood to remain a free people in the land which was theirs.”

“In a war which was deliberately provoked by the enemy, the people’s army gave clear notice that a time comes in the life of a people when there is only one way out – the way of challenging oppression by force and violence. In doing so, they added a glorious page to the long history of our people’s heroic resistance to the robbery of the land of their forefathers. Isandlwana has left us with a heritage whose spirit of no surrender, whose spirit of sacrifice and discipline, inspires and guides our whole nation in the battles to come, a heritage which is a challenge to all of us – the children of ISANDLWANA.”

MANDLA! MAATLA! POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

– Oliver Tambo (8 January 1979) –

Source:
Oliver Tambo, “January 8 Message”, Sechaba, April 1979, pp. 2 – 6.

Castro Khwela
Good morning fellow Compatriots!🙏🏾✊🏾👊🏾