Page 184 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo II

686 XXXIV Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

the 1960s and 1970s. The Soweto Uprisings in 1976 was to have an effect, even if delayed,
throughout the whole of South Africa. Traditional Afrikaner universities such as the Potchef-
stroom University (for Christian Higher Education), the University of Pretoria, University of
the Orange Free State and the University of Stellenbosch were to experience some of these
rumblings. South Africa since the 1955 Defiance Campaign and the apartheids government
reaction against it by detaining, banning and imprisoning people was to lead to more resis-
tance and the radicalisation of black/liberation politics. In the 1960s the African National
Congress was to embark on an armed struggle. It was a while before the political undercur-
rents in the white society penetrated Afrikaans universities, while at the English speaking
universities less isolated from local and national political developments, some discontent
became visible much earlier.

worLds apart: poLiticaL needs, miLitarisation and civiL resistance,
1960 -1988
While the term ideology has been given an array of definitions, at core it implies a com-
prehensive worldview that gives meaning to its supporters or believers. it also projects a
“new world” to be achieved, upheld or fought for against those that does not belong to the
believers. Moreover, ideology implies more than just a worldview but an “acted-upon vi-
sion”. An ideology is never complete in theory or practice unless it supplies a program of
action; word has to follow deed – and deeds imply personal involvement amidst collective
action. Frequently ideology speaks to person’s hearts and emotions and is extolled by their
leaders which could be a chosen or self-anointed elite. It speaks for itself that as a mechanism
for justification, mobilisation and action, ideology is closely related to control over scarce
resources or sectional interests. 41
One theorist observes that in an ideology “words are measured for their fire-power, not
necessarily the truth”. The development of the ideology of Christian Nationalism among
42
white South Africans has been described ad nausea and we will not further expand on it.
The elements of racism, euro-centrism and the incorporation of (Protestant) religion into
the ideology of the apartheid state have been observed by sociologists and historians over
a long time. Contemporary Afrikaner Nationalism as a project started as early as the 1920s
with various elite elements proclaiming the need for a united Afrikanerdom. By 1938 with
the first stone laid at the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria Afrikaner Nationalism became
anew a reality. Ten years later the Afrikaners would take power. The ideology captured the
Afrikaans-speaking whites, their elite used it as a powerful mobilising tool (based on race,
ethnicity and language) and now the new state acted on it.
Resistance against apartheid increased in the 1960s. The African National Congress (ANC)
created an armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK); likewise the South African Communist
Party joined the fray and the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC) resorted to armed
struggle against apartheid. The Liberal Party, recognising that civil resistance against top-

41 “(Structures of) signification are mobilized to legitimate the interests of hegemonic groups”, A. Giddens,
Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and Contradiction in Social Analysis, MacMillan,
London, 1979), p.188.
42 l. S. Feuer, Ideology and Ideologists (Basil Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 1975), p.20.