SADTU History Lessons 21st March: Sharpeville Day Also called Human Rights Day A resource-book for educators SADTU Teachers at Work, with logo Part 6 MK, SAUF, Morogoro and Education MK4 At the beginning of 1961, the decision was taken to launch Umkhonto we Sizwe. It made itself public on 16 December 1961 with sabotage action on power lines. In 1961, the Commonwealth expelled South Africa. The United Nations took longer. It only suspended South Africa in 1974. The ANC tried to form a "South African United Front" (SAUF) in exile, that included the PAC, but it broke down. The PAC continued to exist, supported by sympathisers, but it never mounted another event like Sharpeville. By the time it was banned in 1960, the ANC had become a very large and well-organised nationwide structure. In 1960 the ANC lost a lot. It was devastated. But unlike the PAC, the ANC proved able to rebuild and to open many different fronts. In 1969 the ANC held a conference in Morogoro, Tanzania, and adopted the document known as "Strategy and Tactics". In the 1970s, the ANC established a school in Morogoro, called the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College. The ANC recovered its legal position thirty years later in 1990. In 1994 the ANC won the first universal-franchise election with more than 60% of the vote. Why is Sharpeville Day officially celebrated as Human Rights Day? What was at stake on the day was freedom, and what was being worked out in those days were the tactics to gain freedom. The struggle was to organise and to assert People's Power. Rights are passive, but freedom is active. "Rights", and "Freedom", are not the same thing. Rights are the end of struggle, where struggle has been institutionalized in the state. Rights are administered, or delivered, by a higher power, but Freedom does for itself. The Sharpeville story is not really a "Rights" story. The freedom struggle continues, in South Africa and internationally. For this and more resource booklets, Click Here. <http://studycircle.wikispaces.com/5+History+Resource+Booklets+%28SADTU%29> -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
