Chris Saunders. One hundred years of the African national Congress: New Insights?

Chris Saunders. One hundred years of the African national Congress: New Insights?

Centenaries are ofen the occasion for publishers to launch new books, and the centenary of the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa, the oldest liberation movement on the African continent, in 2012 has proved no exception. What has appeared in the centenary year on the history of the ANC has been of varying quality. Te year began with the launch of a very expensive cofee-table book by the ANC’s own Progressive Business Forum on the twelve leaders of the ANC over the hundred years; this contained some fne photographs, but no new information on the leaders themselves or the context in which they operated[729]. Towards the end of the centenary year, however, a furry of more important new publications saw the light of day, publications that help open new windows onto the history of the ANC, while they also help raise to the surface ongoing debates about that history.

Some of these new publications concern the founding and early years of the ANC, which I take to be its frst three decades, from the establishment of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC), in 1912, through the change of name to ANC in 1923 to its decline in the 1930 and the advent of Alfred Xuma as the new President-General in 1940. Te two middle decades in the organisation’s history include inter alia the African Claims document of 1943 and the founding of the Youth League the following year, the revival in the ANC’s fortunes, its becoming a mass movement for the frst time in the early 1950s, and its activities in that «decade of defance». Te middle decades end with the banning of the organisation in 1960, its movement underground and the decision, taken within the underground ANC in 1961, to turn to armed struggle. Te three decades of exile, from 1960 to 1990, constitute a distinct third period in the ANC’s hundred years. A fourth period may be said to run from 1990 to the present, during which the ANC re-established itself within South Africa as a political party, then in 1994 became the governing party, initially in a Government of National Unity, when South Africa became a democracy. Tis period also encompasses the almost twenty years that have elapsed since then.

Let us now consider some of the new work on each of these four periods in turn.