| Date | November 2019 | Marks available | 9 | Reference code | 19N.1.BP.TZ0.16 |
| Level | Both SL and HL | Paper | Paper 1 - first exams 2017 | Time zone | TZ0 |
| Command term | Discuss | Question number | 16 | 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 M
Timothy Juckes, a professor of psychology, writing in the general history book Opposition in South Africa: The Leadership of ZK Matthews, Nelson Mandela and Stephen Biko (1995).
When the Defiance Campaign had failed to win concessions from the government, and instead precipitated [advanced] further repressive legislation, the society was further polarized and Mandela saw the need to prepare the ANC for a period of underground organization. Now, the government crackdown that began with the treason arrests in 1956 and accelerated after Sharpeville had removed opposition leaders, outlawed opposition organizations and left people frustrated, demanding militancy from their leaders. Conditions in the country demanded either submission to the power of the state or resistance through an underground organization. Furthermore, if the ANC did not coordinate a violent struggle, suggestions that some frustrated people in urban areas might resort to random, unorganized violence might be realized, and this could lead to uncontrolled civil strife [chaos].
The activists, therefore, justified the expansion of their opposition to include armed resistance. As Mandela argued, “fifty years of non-violence had brought the African people nothing but more and more repressive legislation ... all channels of peaceful protest had been barred to us”.
[Source: republished with permission of ABC-CLIO, LLC, from Opposition in South Africa: the leadership of Z.K. Matthews,
Nelson Mandela, and Stephen Biko, Tim J. Juckes, 1995; permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.]
Source N
Leslie Illingworth, a political cartoonist, depicts the outcome of the Rivonia trial in the cartoon “There, I think that’ll hold him” for the British newspaper the Daily Mail (15 June 1964). The characters to the right of the picture are a judge (holding a paper with the words “Mandela Judgement”), the South African prime minister, and a policeman.
[Source: Daily Mail]
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.]
Using the sources and your own knowledge, discuss the view that, by the end of 1964, the anti-apartheid movement had been significantly weakened.
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. While it is expected that there will be coverage of at least two of the sources, candidates are not required to refer to all four sources in their responses.
Indicative content
Source M The ANC had failed in its campaigns of peaceful protest: not only had the movement failed to win any concessions from the South African government but also the government’s crackdown had forced the opposition to go underground and to adopt violent methods.
Source N The trial was a setback to the anti-apartheid struggle. Additionally, or alternatively, the government’s attempt to tie down and repress the anti-apartheid movement was ineffectual.
Source O The government was successful in silencing political protest within South Africa—a success achieved through the application of repressive measures and actions. However, as a consequence of the Rivonia Trial and Mandela’s testimony, the ANC received international attention.
Source P The Rivonia trial was a severe setback for the anti-apartheid movement, but resistance would continue, though in a simpler, more extreme and underground form. In addition, the trial received international attention.
Own knowledge Candidates may argue that by the end of 1964 the movement was weakened due to the impact of repressive legislation including “Baaskap” laws (1948–1958) and the Treason Trials of 1956, when many leaders of the anti-apartheid movement were put on trial for treason. In 1959, the South African government outlawed both the ANC and the PAC (Pan-African Congress) and in 1962 Mandela was arrested and given a five-year prison sentence.
Candidates may also refer to the potential weakening of the movement before 1964 when the anti-apartheid movement split in 1959, when Robert Sobukwe formed the PAC after breaking away from the ANC because he was opposed to the ANC’s multiracial nature.
Candidates may also argue that the movement had been weak throughout the 1950s due to the ineffectiveness of peaceful mass protests such as the opposition to the Pass Laws which resulted in Sharpeville massacre.
However, candidates may suggest that the movement was strengthened by the signing of the Freedom Charter in 1955 which demonstrated some white support. In addition, the MK (“Umkhonto we Sizwe”) and “Poqo” were formed in 1961 and there was support for MK from the Soviet Union and other African countries.
