AUGUST 9: South African Women’s Day
The history of South Africa is rich with examples of the determination of women to play their full part in the difficult struggle for liberation and freedom. On the basis of these struggles had arisen a very powerful women’s movement centred on the African National Congress Women’s League and the Federation of South African Women.
The famous campaigns in which our women played a great role … the White oppressor governments in South Africa never hesitated to employ maximum violence against women. In every massacre of Africans for which the white supremacists were guilty, women died. Many were the peaceful processions of women which were broken up by police batons.
The fighting in South Africa during the 1960s into the 1980s marked the end of the old phase in which our people were the invariable victims of government violence. We took up arms as a nation. The national revolutionary armed struggle became a people struggle which meant the total mobilisation of the entire oppressed people of South Africa and their democratic allies among the Whites.
That phase became a challenge to the great women’s movement in our country. Our women were called upon to join Umkhonto we Sizwe and to master the use of modern weaponry. They were ready to perform all the underground tasks of preparation for the armed struggle. Such a revolution was grim and bitter. We had lived long enough with the white oppressors to know that they were going
