Sharpeville Massacre Sources Question
Sharpeville Massacre Sources Question
) Source A is useful in that it provides detailed statistics about the massacre at Sharpeville, such as the date, number of protestors and the movement of the crowd towards the police station. It does not however provide any information about the shooting, such as who fired first or whether the protesters were armed.
Source A appears to be a reliable source in that it is not biased in favour of either the blacks or the whites, simply providing the cold, hard truth.
Using the information it Source A, I have written a short description of the events leading up to the police opening fire.
At around 8am, a group of passbook protestors began to form into a group near the school in Seeiso Street. This group eventually merged with another group of protestors gathered near the police station, who were waiting for an announcement concerning passbooks. At any time the crowd probably contained around 5000 people. This number was greatly inflated at the following inquest into the events, possibly to make the protestors sound more dangerous.
Whether this description is completely accurate cannot be determined. It is simply a description based on what is said in Source A. I am inclined to believe Source A, because the writer does not seem to have any opinion as to who was in the right at Sharpeville.
2a) Sources A and B differ in their description of the events at Sharpeville. The biggest difference is in the number of people in the crowd. Source A states that there were 5,000 people and that this number was greatly inflated by many others. Source B, however, states that there were four times that many protestors.
Source B is quick to place the blame for the hostilities on the protestors, saying that they fired on the police first, and that the police were merely defending themselves when they fired. Source A makes no mention as to who fired the first shots, but describes the crowd as "Waiting patiently for the expected announcement" and does not say that they were holding any weapons whatsoever.
2b) The differences between sources A and B are probably largely due to the different 'spin' that their respective writers wished to put on events.
This means that while Source A is a simple description of all the facts at hand, leading up to the shootings, Source B goes out of its way to implicate the protestors in starting the fight by shooting at the police. Source B has been made to sound like this because the South African High Commissioner wrote it. It is obvious that he would not want people to think that the South African government condoned the mass murder of blacks by the police, and his statement reflects that. It is biased towards the side of the police, in that it defends their actions and places all of the blame for the hostilities on the protestors.
3. The most notable difference between the aims of the Pan African Congress (PAC) and the African National Congress (ANC) is their attitudes towards the whites in South Africa.
Sobukwe, leader of the PAC was in some ways as extreme as the white government in power at the time. He believed that only 'people who owe their only loyalty to Africa' should inhabit Africa, which effectively meant 'blacks only'. Although he had reason to hold these beliefs - a 'revenge' for years of oppression, there were those in South Africa who thought that Africa would only succeed as a nation if all of its inhabitants settled their differences and worked together as equals. This was the view of the ANC.
"Government OF the Africans BY the Africans"
-Aim of the PAC
The ultimate aim of the ANC was to unite South Africa and adopt a 'Freedom Charter'.
"We pledge ourselves to strive together, sparing nothing of out strength and courage, until the democratic changes here set out have been won."
-Extract from a Preamble to the freedom charter
4) Source B is written with a very distinct intent in mind - to remove any blame from the police and lower the public's opinion of the protestors. Thankfully, we can find out if source ...
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"Government OF the Africans BY the Africans"
-Aim of the PAC
The ultimate aim of the ANC was to unite South Africa and adopt a 'Freedom Charter'.
"We pledge ourselves to strive together, sparing nothing of out strength and courage, until the democratic changes here set out have been won."
-Extract from a Preamble to the freedom charter
4) Source B is written with a very distinct intent in mind - to remove any blame from the police and lower the public's opinion of the protestors. Thankfully, we can find out if source B is accurate by comparing it to other sources (in this case sources C, D and E) and isolating key points of information that occur in all of them.
The two written sources; C and D, both disagree with source B, but to far different degrees.
Source C, an extract from the Times newspaper shows a few interesting differences to Source B.
"A crowd of several hundred Africans"
Compare this to the 20,000 that the High Commissioner claimed were present. It would be quite hard to mistake a crowd of 500 or so Africans for a crowd of 20,000. One of the sources is wrong, although we cannot tell which one until we have some other evidence to swing the argument either way.
"Africans...began stoning police armoured cars"
Source B claims that some of the protestors had firearms, and were actually shooting at the police, prompting them to retaliate in self-defence. If the protestors had only been throwing stones, surely it was not necessary for the police to shoot them?
Again, it is just one source against another. More evidence is needed.
Source D is an eyewitness account of the event, told by Humphrey Tyler. His view of the shooting differs greatly from what the High Commissioner said in his statement.
Most notably, Tyler makes it clear that he did not see any weapons other than those held by the police.
"I saw no weapons, though I looked carefully, and afterwards studied photographs of the death scenes"
This disagrees with Source B, where it states very clearly that "demonstrators attacked the police with assorted weapons including firearms"
Source E shows no fallen weapons on the ground, suggesting either that there were none present or that the police had cleared them away. The latter seems unlikely, in that priority would probably have been given to finding any seriously wounded protestors.
Source D also says that the police attacked without warning, simply firing into the crowds without any order to disperse or a warning volley. Source B says that it was the demonstrators who fired first.
In conclusion, Sources C, D and E hardly support the facts stated in Source B at all. Though Source C does not go very far into challenging it either.
Sources D and E support each other well, making them the strongest sources. This helps them provide a clear challenge to the facts in Source B.
5) I think that neither source C or E can be relied upon to provide an accurate description of the events of the Sharpeville massacre.
Source C does not provide an accurate description of what happened at Sharpeville. This can be ascertained by comparing it with sources A, B, D and E.
Firstly, Source C does not make any reference to the people present being 'protestors', although it does refer to them as a 'mob'. This suggests that the author did not know all of the facts about the shootings, taking away credibility from his story.
The author also seems to have been rather inaccurate when it came to counting the amount of people present as well. He states that there were "several hundred Africans [who] began stoning the police armoured cars". Sources A and B say that there were five thousand and twenty thousand respectively. Large crowds can be misjudged in terms of size, making five thousand people be mistaken for twenty thousand relatively easy. It is not, however, easy to mistake a crowd of 'several hundred' for twenty thousand. Again, this suggests that either the journalist was not an eyewitness or was not very observant.
On the subject of observance, one fact that the author seems to be very sure about is the weapons used in the shooting - sten guns.
"Quite suddenly there were bursts of firing, chiefly from sten guns"
This person was not even accurate about the size of the crowd, why would he notice the type of guns used during in the shooting, unless he was positioned behind the police line. If he was, then it is very likely that this source is written with a very definite bias against the protestors.
Source C also claims that the Africans were stoning the police. Again, both sources D and E disagree with this. Source E shows no fallen stones around the dead bodies and, as mentioned above, the writer of source D did not see any weapons at all, despite looking carefully.
"I saw no weapons, though I looked carefully, and afterwards studied photographs of the death scenes"
All of these factors contribute to this source being unreliable.
Unfortunately, Source E cannot be used considered 'reliable' either. Any pictorial evidence presented to a historian must be able to stand up on it's own without requiring a title. If you take the title away from Source E, you are left with a photograph of some people lying on the ground.
It is not clear whether they are dead or not, whom they are, what the date is, or even where they are.
In conclusion, neither of these sources can be used as reliable information to aid a historian.
6) The South African government had huge power over the blacks of South Africa. By passing a variety of laws they made certain that they could effectively be within their legal right to have people arrested, jailed or 'banned' without a trial.
To be 'banned' was to be isolated from the rest of your community. You were not allowed to be in the same with more than one person at any one time (unless they were close members of your family).
In addition to this;
* You were not allowed to associate with other banned people.
* You could be forced to live in a certain place.
* You were barred from public places such as churches or cinemas.
* You could be kept under house arrest.
* You could not be quoted in newspapers.
* The police constantly watched you.
In his book Biko, Donald Woods said this about the social impact of banning.
"In normal life we forget how often we converse with small groups; thoughts are usually only communicated once in a discussion. But with people coming in one at a time to discuss the same news of the day, I found myself repeating the same phrases, questions, and replies to husbands, wives, even children of the same family."
Donald Woods was 'banned' because of his close relationship with Steve Biko, a black political leader, who was arrested and died in custody after being beaten around the head and left with a bleeding brain (Biko was also banned for his 'subversive' ideas).
The main way that laws such as these were enforced was through the use of passbooks. A passbook was a small identification book that all 'natives' were required to carry around with them at all times. Passbooks prevented the movement of unemployed black people into white areas. This meant that many black people lived out their entire lives in poverty - they had no job, but they could not get a job because either.
Understandably, passbooks prompted much anger in the black community.
The pass laws had their origins in the 18th century. An average of 250,000 people were arrested for violations of the pass laws between 1916 and 1981 (John Allen, 1995).
The ANC and PAC both protested vehemently against the pass laws, and both groups were reportedly present at Sharpeville.
The PAC believed in peaceful protest, hoping that the police could not arrest all of them. The ANC were more militant in there actions. Whether the presence of the ANC sparked off the shooting is unknown, but it cannot be ruled out.
Steve Biko believed that to achieve equality, blacks must first learn to respect themselves. In South African schools, children were taught that the Afrikaans arrived at the same time as the natives, and that they did them a service by giving them work and introducing them to the 'wonders' of Christianity and technology.
Although human fossils found in South Africa have been dated as early as the 5th century AD, proving the Afrikaner history to be false, this misinformation left had a deep impact on the ego of the blacks.
Because of this, the mere presence of the European settlers in South Africa could be classified as a long-term factor contributing to the protests and eventually the shooting.
7) "...Above all we want equal political rights. It is a struggle of the African People... A struggle for the right to live."
The campaign against the pass laws was only one strand in the fight for the liberation of the black people of South Africa.
What the Sharpeville massacre made clear was that the government, deeply entrenched in racist attitudes, would not tolerate opposition and protest from black groups such as the ANC and PAC. They would react to public demonstrations of anger against injustice with extreme violence.
The trial and imprisonment of key political leaders in the ANC and PAC showed that political opposition would not be tolerated either.
Nelson Mandela said at the time of his trial and imprisonment:
"The hard facts were that fifty years of non-violence had brought the African people nothing but more and more repressive legislation, and fewer and fewer rights... It would be unrealistic and wrong for African leaders to continue preaching non-violence at a time when the government met our peaceful demands with force."
There was opposition both within and without South Africa to the apartheid policy. Key figures in the church spoke out against injustice using Christian teachings to support their argument.
Trevor Huddleston, an Anglican missionary, wrote
"Afrikaner theology and English apathy have together created a situation in which men, made in the image and likeness of God are treated as inferior because they are of a different race and colour than their rulers. The weapons used to impose a racial discrimination policy upon the African people are of course political" - 1956
Many church leaders found it impossible to accept the treatment of black people as truly Christian and became involved in the struggle.
Desmond Tutu wrote to Prime Minister John Vorster in 1976 making a plea for a move away from discriminatory laws. He feared an escalation of violence.
"There is much disquiet in our land that people can be held for such long periods in detention and then often either released without being charged or when charged usually acquitted; but this does not free them from police harassment. Though often declared innocent by the courts, they are often punished by being banned (again without recourse to the courts) or placed under house arrest or immediately re-detained. How long can a people do you think bear such blatant injustice and suffering?"
The experiences of Stephen Biko starkly show what Tutu was referring to.
The formation of the South Africa Student Organisation (SASO) gave an outlet for ideas about Black Consciousness.
"...Black people must build themselves into a position of non-dependence upon whites. They must work towards a self-sufficient political, social and economic unit. In this manner they will help themselves towards a deeper realisation of their potential and worth as self-respecting people. The confidence thus generated will give them a sense of pride and awareness."
-Barney Pityana, 1967
Black Consciousness was also an important element of the civil rights movement the USA.
With all the leaders imprisoned, the ANC formed an underground militant wing, called Umkhonto we Sizwe which planned and carried out a series of military attacks on power stations, railway lines, police stations and arranged for their members to be trained in neighbouring 'friendly countries'. (See apendix for their manifesto).
In Britain and other commonwealth countries people were called upon to boycott South Africa by refusing to buy South African goods as well as cutting off academic, sporting and cultural links.
The knowledge that international support existed gave the resistance movements the confidence to continue their struggle even in the face of appalling acts of government aggression such as the killing of school children protesting about being taught in Afrikaans which they saw to be the language of oppression.
It took many more years of sustained political struggle before the transition to majority rule and democracy began in 1990 under the leadership of President de Klerk.
Thus it can be seen that the continued use of the passbook after Sharpeville was only one manifestation of a repressive regime and the lifting of the pass laws alone would not have prevented the violence of the next three decades.
Bibliography
Letter to Vorster - Desmond Tutu
In
The Rainbow people of God - D. Tutu & J. Allen - Bantam Books (1995)
Definition of Black Consciousness - Barry Pityana
In
Biko - D. Woods - Penguin Books (1979)
White Supremacy - Trevor Huddkston
In
The Penguin book of Twentieth Century Prostest - B MacArthur (1998)
