Oliver Tambo and the National Question

Callinicos, Luli

doi:10.18772/22017030220.8

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“…In 1959, Oliver Tambo visited Ac cra, where he met Nkrumah to discuss a common platform between the PAC and ANC. 43 Yet, the pro-PAC "party" in Ghana became stronger and stronger while the PAC itself openly broadcast its symbolical links and ideological affinity with Ghana. 44 The PAC Mani festo envisaged the creation of a continental government, "from Cape to Cairo and from Madagascar to Morocco," and mentioned the need for the "development of the African Personality," one of Nkrumah's core concepts.…”

Section: After the Aapc: The First Political Refugees In Ghana (1959)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Southern African Liberation Movements in Nkrumah’s Ghana

Grilli¹

2020

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History

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The first sub-Saharan colony to obtain independence in 1957, Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana offered shelter and aid to liberation movements from all over the continent. Between 1957 and 1966, hundreds of political activists, refugees, and leaders were hosted in the country. The Ghanaian government offered them financial and political assistance and also provided military training for those involved in armed struggles. As one of the key figures of pan-Africanism, Kwame Nkrumah (1909–1972) actively campaigned for African unity while supporting the independence struggles of African liberation movements. A crucial goal for Nkrumah’s government was to influence African nationalist parties ideologically in order to create a coalition of pan-Africanist movements through which to give birth to the United States of Africa. This political work served to spread Nkrumaism, the ideology crafted by Nkrumah with the aid of the Trinidadian pan-Africanist George Padmore (1903–1959), from Ghana to the rest of the continent. Nkrumah considered the assistance to Southern African liberation movements crucial, especially when, after 1960, the front of African liberation shifted increasingly toward the south. Activists and political refugees from Angola, Mozambique, Nyasaland (Malawi), Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Swaziland (eSwatini), Basutoland (Lesotho), Bechuanaland (Botswana), South West Africa (Namibia), and South Africa visited and resided in Ghana between 1957 and 1966, using Accra as one of their headquarters for their independence struggles. There, many liberation movements could intermingle, create synergies, exchange ideas, and absorb the knowledge that Ghana could offer. The impact of Nkrumah’s influence was often profound and, even if no liberation movement defined itself as Nkrumaist, many adopted and adapted solutions taken from Nkrumah’s Ghana.

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Section: After the Aapc: The First Political Refugees In Ghana (1959)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Southern African Liberation Movements in Nkrumah’s Ghana

Grilli¹

2020

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History

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“…In December 1959, the ANC had discussed creating an international mission, which would 'carry abroad the message of its vision and solicit support for the movement'. 11 The role of establishing an External Mission fell to the ANC's Deputy President Oliver Tambo, who had been nominated by the leadership to co-ordinate the movement's international efforts. However, out of necessity, these plans were rapidly accelerated in the aftermath of Sharpeville.…”

Section: Establishing the Saufmentioning

confidence: 99%

Campaigning Against Apartheid: The Rise, Fall and Legacies of the South Africa United Front 1960–1962

Graham

2018

The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History

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AcknowledgementsI'd like to thank the anonymous peer-reviewers for offering helpful and constructive comments and guidance on this article. This work was supported by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Arts and Humanities Small Grants Award. AbstractThe international struggle against apartheid that emerged during the second half of the twentieth century made the system of legalised racial oppression in South Africa one of the world's great moral causes. Looking back at the anti-apartheid struggle, a defining characteristic was the scope of the worldwide efforts to condemn, co-ordinate, and isolate the country. In March 1961, the international campaign against apartheid achieved its first major success when Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd chose to withdraw South Africa from the Commonwealth following vocal protests at the Heads of State Summit held in London. As a consequence, it appeared albeit briefly, that external pressure would effectively serve as a catalyst for achieving far-reaching and immediate political change in South Africa. The global campaign, centred on South Africa remaining in the Commonwealth, was the first of its kind launched by South Africa's national liberation movements, and signalled the beginning of thirty years of continued protest and lobbying. The contributions from one organisation that had a role in launching and co-ordinating this particular transnational campaign, the South Africa United Front (SAUF), an alliance of liberation groups, have been largely forgotten. Leading members of the SAUF claimed the organisation had a key part in South Africa's subsequent exit from the Commonwealth, and the purpose of this article is to explore the validity of such assertions, as well as the role and impact it had in generating a groundswell of opposition to apartheid in the early 1960s. Although the SAUF's demands for South Africa to leave the Commonwealth were ultimately fulfilled, the documentary evidence suggests that its campaigning activities and impact were not a decisive factor; however the long-term significance of the SAUF, and the position it had in the rise of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) has not been fully recognised. As such, the events around the campaign for South Africa's withdrawal from the Commonwealth act as a microcosm of developments that would define the international struggle against apartheid.

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“…Shubin (2008), arguably the representative of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) closest to the ANC for the period of its illegality, sees Tambo as the pre-eminent leader of the ANC during this period and attaches great importance to Tambo's friendship with the leadership of the then USSR as well as his "acceptance of socialism as the future of society." Callinicos (2004) approaches Tambo's story from a Biographical prism, and she therefore delves into his personality and mentions his "spirituality." Tambo's name was known to South Africa's wider public of the 1980s by his association with the ANC and the struggle for liberation.…”

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O. R. Tambo in the Period of the ANC’s Illegality

Mangashe

2019

OHJSA

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Oliver Reginald Tambo’s life is best known by his association with the African National Congress (ANC) and the struggle for liberation, and as having been the foremost leader of the ANC for most of the period of its illegality. Most accounts, however, do not mention O. R. Tambo’s religious beliefs, and in this they pass off an opportunity to highlight what could have been the source of his individual strength, his spirituality. It is this spirituality that this article seeks to highlight and whose depth it seeks to explore. It aims to show that Tambo’s personal religious beliefs were infused with his political outlook and concludes that this composite belief system provided the strength he exuded throughout his service to the struggle for liberation in South Africa. The article looks at how he related to and influenced those he came into contact with, both inside his organisation, the ANC, its military wing Umkhonto We Sizwe (MK), the broader alliance, and those who were outside his close political realm. It looks at how he exercised his leadership qualities, born of his beliefs, under the pressures thrown up by the struggle, and finally how he grasped the moment at the point of the conclusion of that phase of the struggle. This article is informed by a number of sources, including books written on the subject by scholars, those who shared space with O. R. Tambo, some of his speeches, interviews, and occasionally the author’s own experience as part of the MK contingent from the late 1970s.

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Oliver Tambo and the National Question

Cited by 3 publications

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Southern African Liberation Movements in Nkrumah’s Ghana

Southern African Liberation Movements in Nkrumah’s Ghana

Campaigning Against Apartheid: The Rise, Fall and Legacies of the South Africa United Front 1960–1962

O. R. Tambo in the Period of the ANC’s Illegality

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