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. T
