Oliver Tambo: Fascism in South Africa

Oliver Tambo: Fascism in South Africa

(Extracts of a Statement by the President of the African National Congress of South Africa, O. R. Tambo, on the Occasion of the Launching of the International Year Against Apartheid, United Nations, New York, 21 March 1978)

“Arising directly out of the experience of the rise and defeat of fascism, the founders of this Organisation realised, and sought to give concrete expression to the fact, that the sphere of international relations has ceased to be a tangential factor in the formulation and execution of national policies. Rather, the international setting, itself brought into being by the interaction of national policies, correspondingly provides the condition and the framework for the pursuit of national objectives.”

“To put the matter briefly, the accession of the apartheid regime to power 30 years ago coincided with the efforts of the fascist forces, defeated in Europe, to regroup themselves wherever this was possible, in preparation for their reemergence on the world scene, once more organised, once more strong enough to seek to impose their will on the peoples of the world. In South Africa these forces found fertile ground, enriched by a long history of colonial and white minority domination, and made specially favourable by the fact that the present rulers of our country had for many years prior to their 1948 victory organised themselves into the Nazi vanguard of South Africa, adopted and schooled themselves to the philosophy and practice of Nazism and openly declared their determination to turn South Africa into a Nazi stronghold.”

“In turn, we, the people of South Africa under the leadership of the ANC, as the frontline soldiers, the spearhead of the democratic and anti-fascist forces, accept it as an obligation we owe to Africa and to all progressive mankind to crush the fascist monster in our country, to expunge from the face of the earth this forward base of Nazism and thus ensure, for all the people of South Africa in the first instance, freedom, peace and social progress.”

“Fundamentally hostile to the aspirations of the peoples to determine and control their own destiny, the multi-industrial complexes as well as their political representatives in the leading western countries are infected and guided by a chronic anti-communism which sees fundamental democratic advances as a communist threat to their interests.”

“The African National Congress is convinced that these attempts will fail, thanks to the firm patriotic and anti-racist positions of the governments and peoples of the independent countries of southern Africa. We are equally convinced that we must play a decisive role to guarantee this victory.”

“We are therefore the frontline troops of a worldwide army which, victorious in 1945, is still confronted with the responsibility of ensuring that the peaceable purposes of that victory are not compromised or denied by permitting the forces of international reaction in South Africa or any other part of the world to regroup and prepare themselves for their longer-term objectives.”

“The international campaign of solidarity with our fighting people, and all the peoples of southern Africa must therefore be seen in the wider and more fundamental context of building a world in which democracy, social progress and peace are assured. …It is a matter of great strength to us that the peoples of Africa, united in the OAU stand with us in our struggle to destroy and apartheid regime, and liberate our country.”

“But we emphasise that however forbidding the sacrifice we in South Africa have to make as the price of victory, it is all dwarfed by the greatness, the supreme nobility and above all, the absolute justice of the cause for which we fight. Inevitably, therefore, we shall win; Africa will be totally liberated; a new and truly democratic world order will be born, and, as the ANC declares in its Freedom Charter, there will be peace and friendship.”

– Oliver Tambo (21 March 1978)

Source:
Oliver Tambo, “Fascism in South Africa”, Sechaba, Vol. 12, Third Quarter, July 1978, pp. 26 – 30.

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