The process by which societies group their members and the norms that govern the interactions between these groups and between individuals influence political, economic, and cultural institutions and organization.
LEARNING OBJECTIVE
Explain how social categories, roles, and practices have been maintained and challenged over time.
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS
KC-6.3.III.i Rights-based discourses challenged old assumptions about race, class, gender, and religion.
KC-6.3.III.ii In much of the world, access to education as well as participation in new political and professional roles became more inclusive in terms of race, class, gender, and religion.
KC-6.3.II.C.i Movements throughout the world protested the inequality of the environmental and economic consequences of global integration.
ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLES
Challenges to assumptions about race, class, gender, and religion:
§ The U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, especially as it sought to protect the rights of children, women, and refugees
§ Global feminism movements
§ Negritude movement
§ Liberation theology in Latin America
Increased access to education and political and professional roles:
§ The right to vote and/ or to hold public office granted to women in the United States (1920), Brazil (1932), Turkey (1934), Japan (1945), India (1947), and Morocco (1963)
§ The rising rate of female literacy and the increasing numbers of women in higher education, in most parts of the world
§ The U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1965
§ The end of apartheid
§ Caste reservation in India
Environmental movements:
§ Greenpeace
§ Professor Wangari Maathai’s Green Belt Movement in Kenya
Economic movements:
§ World Fair Trade Organization
1948 -- the National Assembly of the UN adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which contributed to the codification of international human rights laws.
The declaration singled out specific human rights violations such as extrajudicial or summary executions, arbitrary arrest and torture, and slavery or involuntary servitude as well as discrimination on racial, sexual, or religious grounds
Feminism in the West
Emily Davison (1913) and The most notorious act of protest for women’s suffrage
organized feminism had lost momentum by the end of the 1920s, when most countries had achieved universal suffrage.
it was revived in the 1960s in both Western Europe and the United States, it did so with a quite different agenda
1949 -- Simone de Beauvoir published The Second Sex
a book arguing that women had historically been defined as “other,” or deviant from the “normal” male sex
1963 -- Betty Friedan’s book The Feminine Mystique
disclosed the identity crisis of educated women who were unfulfilled by marriage and motherhood
second-wave feminism took up the equal rights agenda with an emphasis now on employment and education rather than voting rights
radical expression of American feminism
Widely known as “women’s liberation”
took broader aim at patriarchy as a system of domination, similar to those of race and class
liberation for women meant becoming aware of their own oppression
They challenged the Miss America contest of 1968 by tossing stink bombs in the hall, crowning a live sheep as their Miss America, and disposing of girdles, bras, high-heeled shoes, tweezers, and other “instruments of oppression” in a Freedom Trashcan
brought into open discussion issues involving sexuality,insisting that free love,lesbianism,and celibacy should be accorded the same respect as heterosexual marriage
women of color
concerns of white, usually middle-class, feminists were hardly relevant to their oppression
Black women had always worked outside the home and so felt little need to be liberated from the chains of homemaking
Solidarity with black men, rather than separation from them, was essential in confronting a racist America
the family was viewed as a secure base from which to resist racism
Viewed mainstream feminism as “a family quarrel between White women and White men”
focus was on racism and poverty
Feminism in the Global South
Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the predominant issues— colonialism, racism, the struggle for independence, poverty, development, political oppression, and sometimes revolution—were not directly related to gender
Once independence or the revolution was achieved, however, the women who had joined those movements often were relegated to marginal positions
African feminists in the 1970s provided support for one another during times of need, such as weddings, births,and funerals;they took on community projects,such as building water cisterns, schools, and dispensaries
established revolving loan societies or bought land or businesses
2004 -- a long campaign by Morocco’s feminist movement resulted in a new Family Law Code,which recognized women as equals to their husbands and allowed them to initiate divorce and to claim child custody, all of which had previously been denied
resented Western feminists’ insistent interest in cultural matters such as female genital mutilation and polygamy, which sometimes echoed the concerns of colonial-era missionaries and administrators
Latin America
Chile -- a women’s movement emerged as part of a national struggle against the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet (ruled 1973 -1990)
Because they were largely regarded as “invisible” in the public sphere, women were able to organize extensively, despite the repression of the Pinochet regime
created women’s movement that crossed class lines and party affiliations
Human rights activists, most of them women, called attention to the widespread use of torture and to the “disappearance” of thousands of opponents of the regime, while demanding the restoration of democracy
Poor urban women by the tens of thousands organized soup kitchens, craft workshops, and shopping collectives, all aimed at the economic survival of their families.
Women of FARC-profiles
NOT ALL third-world groups have identical views
Issue of Inheritance for girls at the Beijing Conference in 1995:
Some Muslim delegates opposed a call for equal inheritance for women, because Islamic law required that sons receive twice the amount that daughters inherit.
In contast, Africans, especially in non-Muslim countries, were aware of how many children had been orphaned by AIDS and felt that girls’ chances for survival depended on equal inheritance
Structural Opposition
The Vatican, some Catholic and Muslim countries, and at times the U.S. government took strong exception to aspects of global feminism
emphasis on reproductive rights
access to abortion
access to birth control
Issues that remain in Focus
female literacy and Domesticity
Arab and Muslim lands, women are twice as likely as men to be illiterate, and in some places nine of ten women are illiterate
2001-- India's female literacy had reached 54 percent, and yet women remained largely confined to the home
Fewer than one-quarter of women of all ages were engaged in work, while the birthrate remained high even with the greater availability of birth control measures.
This condition has ensured a life of domesticity for many Indian women
Abuse
China -- Demographers estimate that annually more than one-half million female births go unrecorded in government statistics
no one can with certainty account for the “missing” girls, some population experts speculate that a continued strong preference for male children causes parents to send baby girls away for adoption or to be raised secretly
in some cases to single them out for infanticide
India's prevalence of dowry deaths
birth of girl children viewed as burdensome is the custom of paying dowries (gifts of money or goods) to the husband and his family upon a woman’s marriage
1995 -- the government of India reported six thousand dowry deaths, though unofficial estimates put the number closer to twenty-five thousand
Pakistan
1994-1997 -- more than five hundred husbands set fire to their wives
husbands have set fire to wives who overcooked or oversalted the men’s food
Women's Rise to Positions of Power in Global South
Indira Gandhi -- India
Benazir Bhuto -- Pakistan
Sirimavo Bandaranaike and Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga -- Sri Lanka
Daw Aung San Suu Ky in Myanmar (formerly Burma)
a movement to promote Négritude (“Blackness”)
Origins:
Drawing from the pan-African movements that emerged in the United States and the Caribbean, African intellectuals, especially in French-controlled west Africa
a form of nationalism that flourished in sub-Saharan Africa. African nationalists celebrated their blackness and Africanness in contrast to their European colonial rulers
Broader context:
This celebration of African culture was accompanied by grassroots protests against European imperialism
A new urban African elite slowly created the sorts of associations needed to hold demonstrations and fight for independence
workers’ strikes against oppressive labor practices and the low wages paid by colonial overlords in areas such as the Gold Coast and Northern Rhodesia
African poets associated with the Négritude movement expressed their attachment to Africanness and encourage Africans to turn away from European culture and colonial rule.
other movements with similar goals
Some independent Christian churches also provided avenues for anti-colonial agitation
prophets such as Simon Kimbangu in the Belgian Congo promised his churchgoers that God would deliver them from imperial control.
“liberation theology” -- a mixture of Catholicism and Marxism meant to combat the misery and repression of the masses through revolutionary salvation
autocratic regimes ordered the assassinations of hundreds of priests preaching this message of liberation, including Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador in 1980
History of the Catholic Church in Latin America
Positive
much of the criticism of brutality perpetrated by colonial rule was documented by monastic groups
Negative
Throughout the 19th century, the Church aligned itself with the upper classes and only minimally addressed the grievances of the poor.
Mexican Revolution (1810-1821) resulted in a Catholic Church backed Emperor.
These nationalistic uprisings maintained a Catholic church that tended to identify itself with the rich
Catholic Action movement (helped to alter the role of religion in society, linking the Church to political action)
Gustavo Gutiérrez (Peruvian priest) first presented the term “liberation theology” in a paper called “Toward a Theology of Liberation” in which he articulated a commitment to actions and expressed the importance of theology as critical evaluation, stating that “theology is reflection”
Major Components of Liberation Theology
theology does “not stop with reflecting on the world, but rather tries to be a part of the process through which the world is transformed”
People are encouraged to become active agents of their own destiny and in effect to liberate themselves from the confines of injustice.
Rather than small ineffective reforms, liberation theology supported work towards systemic change and even the possibility of revolution as a means of freeing the poor from oppression
While violence was not encouraged, it was justified as a possible last resort or necessity of the revolution
Reaction
The Vatican felt that the connection between the movement and Marxism where incompatible with Catholic teachings.
Marx encourages class struggle and social disruption that conflicted with the traditional order and stability of the Church
The Vatican feared that these forms of social unrest and questioning would weaken the power and influence of the Church
United States (1920)
we will examine in class
Brazil (1932)
right to vote was extended to all women in 1932, some formal and diffuse barriers managed to constrain their political participation
vote became compulsory only for men, which meant that married women would only be able to vote if their husbands gave them permission
civil code at that time stated that women should be authorized by their husbands or fathers to act outside of their imposed duties
1945 -- voting was mandatory for men and women
2018 -- Brazil less then 12% of elected politicians are women
Turkey (1934)
Beginning in 1930 women could vote and run for local office
Legislation passed in 1934 that expanded women's voting rights to national parliamentary elections
Japan (1945)
Constitution for post-WWII Japan established universal suffrage
thanks in part to Lt. Ethel Weed, an American officer who advocated for civil code reform during the post-World War II Allied occupation of Japan
India (1947)
The Government of India Act 1935 extended the vote to include around 6 million women, but even so covered only 2.5% of the women in India
In the 1937 elections, 10 women were elected from general constituencies, 41 from reserved constituencies, and five were nominated to provincial legislative councils
Indian Constitution (1949) established universal adult suffrage, eliminating the gender, income, property, and educational restrictions on voting
Morocco (1963)
after gaining independence from France in 1956, Morocco's constitution, which was adopted in 1962
Women in Morocco were granted the right to vote and stand for election in 1963
1993 -- a woman was elected to parliament for the first time
Article 8 of the constitution of 1996 guarantees women equal political rights with men, the constitution does not provide women with the equal enjoyment of civil rights
Women are still not considered full citizens in many sectors of the law
2002 -- a proportional list system and a 30-seat-quota for women in the parliamentary elections
2017 -- women hold 21 percent of parliamentary seats in Morocco
Saudi Arabia (2015)
Saudi women could vote and run for office
130,000 women registered to vote, compared to 1.35 million men in 2015
a total of 978 women registered as candidates, alongside 5,938 men
EVIDENCE – OUT OF SCHOOL CHILDREN
Girls are more likely to never enter primary school than boys.
Less than 40% of countries provide girls and boys with equal access to education. Only 39% of countries have equal proportions of boys and girls enrolled in secondary education.
54 million of the 76 million illiterate young women live in only 9 countries
Despite all international and national efforts, over half of children out of school are girls (31 million girls as of 2020)
The completion rates and learning levels of girls are lower than those of boys
Of the world’s 774 million illiterate adults, 2/3 are women.
The share of illiterate women has not changed for the past 20 years.
Among the world’s 123 million illiterate youth, 76 million are female.
These gender disparities remain persistent, with little change over time.
The female literacy rate is under 50% in +12 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. In several cases it’s under 20%
benefits of female education for women’s empowerment
As female education rises, fertility, population growth, and infant and child mortality fall and family health improves
Increases in girls’ secondary school enrollment are associated with increases in women’s participation in the labor force and their contributions to household and national income.
Women’s increased earning capacity, in turn, has a positive effect on child nutrition
Children — especially daughters — of educated mothers are more likely to be enrolled in school and to have higher levels of educational attainment
Educated women are more politically active and better informed about their legal rights and how to exercise them
What it did
outlawed discrimination in public accommodation, housing, jobs
increased federal power to prosecute civil rights abuses
What it was
part of the anti-discrimination measures enacted as part of a broader series of legislation passed between 1964-1967 under President L.B. Johnson known as the Great Society Programs
continuation of the stated policy goal of President J.F. Kennedy
Who Passed it
House of Representatives
Democrats (153 Yea; 91 Nay) 63%
Republicans (136 Yea; 35 Nay) 80%
Senate
Democrats (46 Yea; 21 Nay) 69%
Republicans (27 Yea; 6 Nay) 82%
President Johnson signed it into law
Context
Pressure for the US government to enact this legislation was coming from two primary fronts:
Domestic -- the Civil Rights movement in the United States
Foreign -- in the context of the Cold War, the Soviet Unions most effective criticism of the United States focused on the topic of race relations within the country
apartheid -- a policy of racial separation
South Africa (after WWII)
14% of population was descended from Dutch and English settlers
74 percent of the population made up of indigenous Africans
By law, whites controlled:
the most productive tracts of land
government designated approximately 87 percent of South Africa’s territory for white residents
industrial, mining, and commercial enterprises
the government
Nonwhites were classified according to a variety of ethnic identifications—colored or mixed-race peoples, Indians, and “Bantu,” which in turn was subdivided into numerous distinct tribal affiliations (for example, Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho).
race based laws imposed on South Asians and people of mixed parentage classified as “nonwhite”:
segregated housing
segregated schools
segregated jobs
laws for indigenous Africans placed far stricter limitations
on place of residence
right to travel
access to jobs and public facilities
Homelands
African “homelands,” somewhat similar to Amerindian reservations in the United States, were created in parts of the country, often far from the more dynamic and prosperous urban and industrial areas.
Overcrowded and lacking investment, these restricted “homelands” were very poor and squalid, with few services and fewer opportunities.
Events leading to the end of apartheid
1912 -- African National Congress (ANC) formed
African lawyer named Nelson Mandela organized violent guerrilla resistance by the ANC
Mandela sentenced to life in prison in 1964
1960 -- Shootings in Sharpeville intensify South African struggle against apartheid
police fired on demonstrators and banned all peaceful political protest by Africans
69 blacks died and almost two hundred were wounded
June 16, 1976 -- Soweto Uprising
Thousands of Students Protest against educational discrimination -- Afrikaans Language in Soweto
police killed more than 500 people
1977 -- Steve Biko, the leader of the Black Consciousness Movement was beaten, arrested and died in police custody inciting more urgency to end apartheid
1986-- United States Calls for Sanctions in South Africa
1986 -- International Divestment and Boycotts
August 1989, F.W. de Klerk replaced P.W. Botha as state president. F.W. de Klerk made some promises to end white domination in South Africa and relaxed some of the apartheid laws.
de Klerk released eight of the country’s most prominent anti-apartheid political prisoners
February 2, 1990, de Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC and other political organizations.
de Klerk also removed the restrictions placed on Black communities since the state of emergency declared by Botha in 1986
February 11, 1990 -- Mandela released
April 27, 1994 -- South Africans witnessed the first election ever in South African history where Black people were allowed to vote.
The A.N.C. won more than 62 percent of the vote and Mandela was chosen as president
Nelson Mandela Dead: The True Story Behind 'Invictus'-ABC News
"Invictus" - Official Trailer
Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom Official UK Trailer (2013)
Caste and reservation in the Indian Constitution of 1949
The Constitution prohibits discrimination (Article 15) of any citizen on grounds of religion, race, caste, etc.; untouchability (Article 17); and forced labour (Article 23).
It provides for specific representation through reservation of seats for the SCs and the STs in the Parliament (Article 330) and in the State Legislative Assemblies (Article 332), as well as, in Government and public sector jobs, in both the federal and state Governments (Articles 16(4), 330(4) and 335)
Scheduled Castes (SCs)
Scheduled Tribes (STs)
These "reservations" or quotas were granted to groups on the basis of their (presumably immutable) caste identities
The logic of reservations in India was simple: they were justified as a means of making up for millennia of discrimination based on birth.
India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru had hoped that caste consciousness would wither away after Independence, but the opposite has happened.
Because caste was such a powerful source of self-identification, it proved to be a useful tool of political mobilization in India's electoral democracy: when an Indian casts his vote, he too often votes his caste
1989 Reform
VP Singh-led government decided to extend their benefits to Other Backward Classes (OBCs)
castes who were deemed backward because they lacked "upper caste" status
Case study: The Patels
unlikely caste to be seeking such recognition
they are in fact dominant in Gujarat
prominent, successful and wealthy beyond their share of 20% of the state's (Gujarat) population
They are also thriving on foreign shores
more than a quarter of a million Patels in the UK
about 200,000 in the US
2015 -- Hardik Patel
demand that the Patels - or the Patidar caste - be given better access to jobs and education through the quota system
says it's a myth that all Patels are rich
"Only five to 10% of Patels are prosperous, that doesn't make the entire community rich. If you visit a village home in the Saurashra region, you'll see people don't have enough to eat. There are so many poor people. And if you look at the farmers who have killed themselves in the past 10 years, the largest numbers are from among the Patels"
Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel
several Patels occupy important portfolios in her cabinet
she has ruled out their demand for quotas, but she has named a group of ministers to talk to Hardik Patel.
The talks so far have failed to yield any results
Many suspect that Hardik Patel and his fellow Patels aren't really looking for reservations:
by demanding the impossible, they are actually seeking the abolition of the present system
Non-Governmental Organization created with the belief that individual using non-violent action can create positive change
origins
1971 -- group of activists protesting underground nuclear testing by the US military at Amchitka, a tiny volcanic island off western Alaska
1970s -- group spread campaigning on various environmental issues, including commercial whaling and toxic waste
1979 -- Greenpeace International was formed and is today based in Amsterdam
Initiatives
1997 -- East Asia
fight climate change, stop toxic pollution, ensure food security, end illegal deforestation and defend the oceans
targeted industrial pollution in China
Industrial water pollution on the Yangtze River -- pollution, electronic waste and factory production
lobby against genetically engineered crops and the use of pesticides and fertilizers
fight against illegal deforestation in Indonesia, Madagascar and the Congo
“Defending our Pacific”
working for stricter regulations for Taiwan’s massive fishing fleet to protect the endangered bluefin
The Green Belt Movement (GBM) was founded by Professor Wangari Maathai in 1977 under the auspices of the National Council of Women of Kenya (NCWK) to respond to the needs of rural Kenyan women who reported that their streams were drying up, their food supply was less secure, and they had to walk further and further to get firewood for fuel and fencing.
GBM encouraged the women to work together to grow seedlings and plant trees to bind the soil, store rainwater, provide food and firewood, and receive a small monetary token for their work.
GBM actions:
the Green Belt Movement began to advocate for greater democratic space and more accountability from national leaders.
It fought against land grabbing and the encroachment of agriculture into the forests.
It contested the placement of a tower block in Uhuru Park in downtown Nairobi and joined others to call for the release of political prisoners
In recent years, it has extended its reach internationally to campaign and advocate on climate change, the importance of Africa’s rainforests in the Congo, to initiate the mottainai campaign—an effort to instill the notions of “reduce, reuse, recycle” in Kenya and around the world
GBM has partnered with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in its Billion Tree Campaign
GBM continues to stand as a testament to the power of grassroots organizing, proof that one person’s simple idea—that a community should come together to plant trees, can make a difference.
Origins
1946 -- began in the United States, where Ten Thousand Villages (formerly Self Help Crafts) began buying needlework from Puerto Rico
SERRV began to trade with poor communities in the South in the late 1940s
The first formal “Fair Trade” shop which sold these and other items opened in 1958 in the USA
late 1950s --Europe
Oxfam UK started to sell crafts made by Chinese refugees in Oxfam shops
1964 -- it created the first Fair Trade Organisation
1967 -- Parallel initiatives were taking place in the Netherlands
Fair Trade Original, was established
1969 -- the first “Third World Shop”
1960s and 1970s -- Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and socially motivated individuals in many countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America perceived the need for fair marketing organisations, which would provide advice, assistance and support to disadvantaged producers.
1973 -- Fair Trade Original in the Netherlands, imported the first fairly traded coffee from cooperatives of small farmers in Guatemala
1989 -- World Fair Trade Organisation (WFTO) was formed in the Netherlands
What the Group does
represent the Fair Trade supply chain, from production to sale, and also include support organisations such as Shared Interest, which provides financial services and support to produces
attempts to raise awareness on trade injustices and imbalances of power in the conventional trade structures, and to advocate changes in policies to favour equitable trade
Activity
Using the following documents, develop a thesis to address the prompt.
Prompt: Evaluate the extent to which politics effected gender roles for women in twentieth-century Latin America.
Document 1
Source: Ricardo Dolz, Cuban senator, speech to the Cuban Senate on a bill to give married women economic rights, Havana, Cuba, 1917.
Women should have their rights because the movement is recognized worldwide, it is just and moderate, and the women are not asking to dominate men. Resisting the woman’s movement will encourage women activists to become socialists and fulfill everyone’s greatest fear.
Document 2
Source: María Luisa Marín, anarchist and union organizer, speech in support of jailed communist politician Herón Proal in the rent-strike movement in Veracruz, Mexico, December 1924.
We will do what we can so that our children will not denounce us as traitors and cowards. We will prove that with Proal or without him, the Veracruz renters will defend their rights. In view of the danger that now threatens us, we issue an urgent call to the people. Don’t wait for the powerful to help you. They will never appreciate the dignity and value of our solidarity which some day will triumph. The supreme hour of the people has arrived. People of Veracruz, wake up and join the struggle.
Document 3
Source: Sandinista National Liberation Front of Nicaragua,* party platform, 1969.
The Sandinista Popular Revolution will abolish the discrimination that women have suffered with respect to men: it will establish economic, political, and cultural equality between women and men. It will elevate the political, cultural, and vocational level of women via their participation in the revolutionary process.
* socialist revolutionary organization
Activity
1.) read the selected poems from the Négritude movement and use the documents to develop a claim to the following prompt.
Prompt: Evaluate the extent to with groups in colonially held areas challenges assumptions about race, class, gender and religion.
2.) Use evidence from one of the selected documents to support your claim.
Document 1
Source: Bernard Dadié’s poem “Dry Your Tears, Africa!” -- encourage Africans to turn away from European culture and colonial rule.
Dry your tears, Africa!
Your children come back to you
Out of the storms and squalls of fruitless journeys. . . .
Over the gold of the east
and the purple of the setting sun,
the peaks of proud mountains
and the grasslands drenched with light
They return to you. . . .
And our senses are now opened
to the splendour of your beauty
to the smell of your forests
to the charms of your waters
to the clearness of your skies
to the caress of your sun. . . .
Document 2
Source: Léon-Gontran Damas's poem "Limbé" -- Becoming French requires loss, repression, and rejection of self as well as adoption of a civilization that robs indigenous cultures, values, and beliefs, as articulated as poet laments his losses.
Give me back my black dolls
so that I may play with them
the naïve games of my instinct
in the darkness of its laws
once I have recovered
my courage
and my audacity
and become myself once more
Document 3
Source: Aime Cesaire's poem Cahier d'un retour au pays natal -- rejects assimilation and articulates the concept that black personality is not the lifeless object society has reduced it to; instead, it is a vibrant creative force that confronts racism, colonialism, and other forms of domination.
My Négritude is not a stone, its deafness hurled against the clamor of the day
my Négritude is not a leukoma of dead liquid over the earth's dead eye
my Négritude is neither tower nor cathedral
it takes root in the red flesh of the soil
it takes root in the ardent flesh of the sky
it breaks through opaque prostration with its upright patience.
Activity
A.) Read the two passages below.
B.) Answer the following questions:
1.) What are Steve Biko’s charges against white liberals in South Africa?
2.) What was the proper role for whites in the anti-apartheid movement according to Biko?
3.) How does Bishop Tutu’s eulogy differ from the political spirit and point of view expressed in Biko’s 1970 essay?
4.) According to Bishop Tutu, what were Biko’s strongest characteristics?
5.) Were these characteristics demonstrated in Biko’s essay?
Document 1
Source: First selection from Steve Biko, I Write What I Like, ed. by Aelred Stubbs (Harper & Row, 1972). Bowerdean Publishing Co., Ltd
Context: One of South Africa’s martyrs in the struggle against apartheid was Steve Biko (1946–1977), a thinker and activist especially concerned with building pride among Africans and asserting the importance of African cultures. Biko was one of the founders of the Black Consciousness Movement, focusing on the ways in which white settlers had stripped Africans of their freedom. As a result of his activism, he was restricted to his home town in 1973. Between 1975 and 1977 he was arrested and interrogated four times by the police. After his arrest in August 1977 he was severely beaten while in custody. He died days later without having received medical care. His death caused worldwide outrage.
But these are not the people we are concerned with [those who support apartheid]. We are concerned with that curious bunch of nonconformists who explain their participation in negative terms: that bunch of do-gooders that goes under all sorts of names—liberals, leftists etc. These are the people who argue that they are not responsible for white racism and the country’s “inhumanity to the black man.” These are the people who claim that they too feel the oppression just as acutely as the blacks and therefore should be jointly involved in the black man’s struggle for a place under the sun. In short, these are the people who say that they have black souls wrapped up in white skins.
The role of the white liberal in the black man’s history in South Africa is a curious one. Very few black organisations were not under white direction. True to their image, the white liberals always knew what was good for the blacks and told them so. The wonder of it all is that the black people have believed in them for so long. It was only at the end of the 50s that the blacks started demanding to be their own guardians.
Nowhere is the arrogance of the liberal ideology demonstrated so well as in their insistence that the problems of the country can only be solved by a bilateral approach involving both black and white. This has, by and large, come to be taken in all seriousness as the modus operandi in South Africa by all those who claim they would like a change in the status quo. Hence the multiracial political organisations and parties and the “nonracial” student organisations, all of which insist on integration not only as an end goal but also as a means.
The integration they talk about is first of all artificial in that it is a response to conscious manoeuvre rather than to the dictates of the inner soul. In other words the people forming the integrated complex have been extracted from various segregated societies with their in built complexes of superiority and inferiority and these continue to manifest themselves even in the “nonracial” setup of the integrated complex. As a result the integration so achieved is a one-way course, with the whites doing all the talking and the blacks the listening. Let me hasten to say that I am not claiming that segregation is necessarily the natural order; however, given the facts of the situation where a group experiences privilege at the expense of others, then it becomes obvious that a hastily arranged integration cannot be the solution to the problem. It is rather like expecting the slave to work together with the slave-master’s son to remove all the conditions leading to the former’s enslavement.
Secondly, this type of integration as a means is almost always unproductive. The participants waste lots of time in an internal sort of mudslinging designed to prove that A is more of a liberal than B. In other words the lack of common ground for solid identification is all the time manifested in internal strifes [sic] inside the group.
It will not sound anachronistic to anybody genuinely interested in real integration to learn that blacks are asserting themselves in a society where they are being treated as perpetual under-16s. One does not need to plan for or actively encourage real integration. Once the various groups within a given community have asserted themselves to the point that mutual respect has to be shown then you have the ingredients
for a true and meaningful integration. At the heart of true integration is the provision for each man, each group to rise and attain the envisioned self. Each group must be able to attain its style of existence without encroaching on or being thwarted by another. Out of this mutual respect for each other and complete freedom of self-determination there will obviously arise a genuine fusion of the life-styles of the various groups. This is true integration.
From this it becomes clear that as long as blacks are suffering from [an] inferiority complex—a result of 300 years of deliberate oppression, denigration and derision—they will be useless as co-architects of a normal society where man is nothing else but man for his own sake. Hence what is necessary as a prelude to anything else that may come is a very strong grass-roots build-up of black consciousness such that blacks can learn to assert themselves and stake their rightful claim.
Thus in adopting the line of a nonracial approach, the liberals are playing their old game. They are claiming a “monopoly on intelligence and moral judgement” and setting the pattern and pace for the realisation of the black man’s aspirations. They want to remain in good books with both the black and white worlds. They want to shy away from all forms of “extremisms,” condemning “white supremacy” as being just as bad as “Black Power!” They vacillate between the two worlds, verbalising all the complaints of the blacks beautifully while skilfully extracting what suits them from the exclusive pool of white privileges. But ask them for a moment to give a concrete meaningful programme that they intend adopting, then you will see on whose side they really are. Their protests are directed at and appeal to white conscience, everything they do is directed at finally convincing the white electorate that the black man is also a man and that at some future date he should be given a place at the white man’s table.
Document 2
Source: Crying in the Wilderness: The Struggle for Justice in South Africa, ed. John Webster (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1982). Continuum International Publishing Group.
Context: In the following selection Anglican bishop Desmond Tutu (b. 1931) expressed his personal anguish at the death of Steve Biko. He summarized Biko’s contributions to the struggle for justice in South Africa. Tutu won the Noble Peace Prize in 1984 and was named archbishop in 1988. From 1995 to 1998 he chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which investigated atrocities in South Africa during the years of apartheid. He stated that his objective was to create “a democratic and just society without racial divisions.”
When we heard the news “Steve Biko is dead” we were struck numb with disbelief. No, it can’t be true! No, it must be a horrible nightmare, and we will awake and find that really it is different—that Steve is alive even if it be in detention. But no, dear friends, he is dead and we are still numb with grief, and groan with anguish “Oh God, where are you? Oh God, do you really care—how can you let this happen to us?”
It all seems such a senseless waste of a wonderfully gifted person, struck down in the bloom of youth, a youthful bloom that some wanted to see blighted. What can be the purpose of such wanton destruction? God, do you really love us? What must we do which we have not done, what must we say which we have not said a thousand times over, oh, for so many years—that all we want is what belongs to all God’s children, what belongs as an inalienable right—a place in the sun in our own beloved mother country. Oh God, how long can we go on? How long can we go on appealing for a more just ordering of society where we all, black and white together, count not because of some accident of birth or a biological irrelevance—where all of us black and white count because we are human persons, human persons created in your own image.
God called Steve Biko to be his servant in South Africa—to speak up on behalf of God, declaring what the will of this God must be in a situation such as ours, a situation of evil, injustice, oppression and exploitation. God called him to be the founder father of the Black Consciousness Movement against which we have had tirades and fulminations. It is a movement by which God, through Steve, sought to awaken in the Black person a sense of his intrinsic value and worth as a child of God, not needing to apologise for his existential condition as a black person, calling on blacks to glorify and praise God that he had created them black. Steve, with his brilliant mind that always saw to the heart of things, realised that until blacks asserted their humanity and their personhood, there was not the remotest chance for reconciliation in South Africa. For true reconciliation is a deeply personal matter. It can happen only between persons who assert their own personhood, and who acknowledge and respect that of others. You don’t get reconciled to your dog, do you? Steve knew and believed fervently that being pro-black was not the same thing as being anti-white. The Black Consciousness Movement is not a “hate white movement,” despite all you may have heard to the contrary. He had a far too profound respect for persons as persons, to want to deal with them under readymade, shopsoiled [sic] categories.
All who met him had this tremendous sense of a warmhearted man, and as a notable acquaintance of his told me, a man who was utterly indestructible, of massive intellect and yet reticent; quite unshakeable in his commitment to principle and to radical change in South Africa by peaceful means; a man of real reconciliation, truly an instrument of God’s peace, unshakeable in his commitment to the liberation of all South Africans, black and white, striving for a more just and more open South Africa.
Key Takeaways
A.) African nationalists faced many challenges on the path towards sovereignty
black Africans perceived by Europeans as incapable of self-government
imperial powers planned for a slow transition to independence
The presence of white settlers in certain African colonies also complicated the process of decolonization
The politics of the cold war allowed imperial powers to justify oppressive actions in the name of rooting out a subversive communist presence
Despite the delays, sub-Saharan states slowly won their independence as each newly independent nation inspired and often aided other lands to win their freedom
B.) Feminism changed its focus in the mid-20th century from focusing on issues of voting rights and education to equality
Split occurred between Feminism in the west vs. Feminism in the Global South
Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the predominant issues— colonialism, racism, the struggle for independence, poverty, development, political oppression, and sometimes revolution—were not directly related to gender
C.) Issues of Equality were fought on many fronts
“liberation theology” in Latin America
civil rights movement in the United States
Négritude Movement in Africa
anti-apartheid movement in South Africa
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day 2