| Date | November 2019 | Marks available | 6 | Reference code | 19N.1.BP.TZ0.15 |
| Level | Both SL and HL | Paper | Paper 1 - first exams 2017 | Time zone | TZ0 |
| Command term | Compare and contrast | Question number | 15 | Adapted from | N/A |
Question
The sources and questions relate to case study 2: Apartheid South Africa (1948–1964) — Protests and action: Official response: the Rivonia Trial (1963–1964) and the imprisonment of the ANC leadership.
Source O
Sheridan Johns, a professor of political science, and R Hunt Davis Jr., a professor of history, writing in the academic book Mandela, Tambo and the African National Congress: The Struggle Against Apartheid, 1948–1990: A Documentary Survey (1991).
The Rivonia Trial 1963 marked an end to an era of growing African nationalist protest. For a time, the ANC and its allies had openly challenged the National Party regime and had begun to seize the political initiative, but the government had moved quickly to restore its control. The African political voice was now effectively silenced.
Rivonia marked the beginning of an era, that of Nelson Mandela as the symbol of the African struggle for freedom in South Africa. It was not, however, only Mandela’s sentence of life imprisonment but also his personal testimony that marked the Rivonia Trial ... His trial testimony received wide publicity, first in news accounts of the trial and then in a collection of his trial addresses published in Britain.
[Source: republished with permission of Oxford University Press - Books, from Mandela, Tambo and the African National
Congress: The Struggle Against Apartheid, 1948–1990: A Documentary Survey, by Sheridan Johns and R Hunt Davis Jr., 1991;
permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.]
Source P
Anthony Sampson, a journalist and a friend of Nelson Mandela, writing in his despatch [report] from the Rivonia trial courtroom for the British newspaper The Observer (1 March 1964).
The charges, if proven, can carry the death sentence; therefore a real possibility exists that some of the accused, including Mandela, could be hanged.
If this were to happen, it would have very large repercussions [consequences]. It would produce the first African martyrs. It would make the conscience of America and Britain—where Mandela enjoys great personal prestige—much more uncomfortable. And it would proclaim clearly that South Africa is now in a state of war. But whatever the verdict, it is clear that the trial will be a landmark in the African political movement for it is unlikely that Mandela will want to refute [reject] the charge that he has resorted to violent means …
The Rivonia trial, together with the mass arrests in the Pan-African Congress and the exodus of leaders, has produced a major setback for the African resistance … The individual African leadership, prominent for the last 10 years, is now in effect incapacitated [severely weakened] inside the republic …
It is still too early to have a very clear picture of the new leadership that is emerging out of despair. It does not, astonishingly, seem noticeably anti-white, but it will certainly be less sophisticated, less moderate and much more secretive than its predecessors.
[Source: excerpt from Anthony Sampson, “Nelson Mandela: how apartheid regime’s court tried to destroy the ANC”,
The Observer, 1 March 1964. Copyright Guardian News & Media Ltd 1964.]
Compare and contrast what Sources O and P reveal about the ANC’s struggle against the South African government between 1962 and 1964.
Markscheme
Apply the markbands that provide the “best fit” to the responses given by candidates and award credit wherever it is possible to do so. The following material is an indication of what candidates may elect to write about in their responses. It is neither prescriptive nor exhaustive and no set answer is required.
Comparisons:
- Both sources indicate that the trial was a turning point after a period of growing anti-apartheid protest.
- Both sources suggest that the trial was a setback for the ANC.
- Both sources indicate that there was international interest in the trial.
- Both sources emphasize the role of Nelson Mandela in the struggle against apartheid.
Contrasts:
- Source P argues that political opposition within South Africa, although diminished, would continue to exist whereas Source O states that such opposition was silenced.
- Source O suggests that the plight of Mandela was public knowledge only in Britain whereas Source P suggests this knowledge may have troubled those in the US too.
