ANC Youth League Basic Policy Document – 1948

If, as argued above, the 1944 Manifesto represented an introduction into the perspectives and ideological orientation of African Nationalism, as espoused by the ANCYL, then definitely the 1948 ANCYL Basic Policy Document released by the National Executive Committee constituted a comprehensive elaboration on the views of the League. The ANCYL Basic Policy Document was released four years after the Manifesto and therefore represented the maturation of the ideas initially presented in 1944, combined with the experience of having run the organisation for four years, presenting an opportunity to test the ideas of the youth against those of the African people practically. The 1948 Basic Policy Document went very far in trying to conceptualise in much more detail its founding ideas under the theme of African Nationalism.

On the issue of African Nationalism the ANCYL Basic Policy Document (http://www.anc.org.za/list.Policy Document.1948) expressed that the African people in South Africa are oppressed as a group with a particular colour. They suffer national oppression in common with thousands and millions of oppressed Colonial peoples in other parts of the world. African Nationalism is the dynamic National liberatory creed of the oppressed African people. It proceeds to state that its fundamental aims were (1) the creation of a united nation out of the heterogeneous tribes; (2) the freeing of Africa from foreign domination and foreign leadership; (3) the creation of conditions which can enable Africa to make her own contribution to human progress and happiness.

The Basic Policy document proceeded to argue that in order to achieve Africa‟s freedom, the Africans must build a powerful national liberation movement, and in order that the national movement should have inner strength and solidarity, it

should adopt the national liberatory creed - African Nationalism. It should be led by the Africans themselves.

In an attempt to again highlight the organisational incapacities of the ANC so that the point may be reached that effective struggles may be waged against the White state, necessitating and affirming the need for the formation of the Youth League, the Policy Document states that, from the very outset, the ANC suffered from serious defects. The founders, great patriots no doubt, had no grasp of the concrete historical situation and its implications and were obsessed with imperialist forms of organisation. As a result, the ANC suffered from defects, both in form and matter, and as long as these remained the ANC could not:

1. Create effective organisational machinery for waging the national liberatory fight;

2. Put forward a dynamic Nationalistic programme which could inspire and cement the tribes, and be a motive power and driving force in the

militant struggle for national freedom.

The Basic Policy document was critical in cementing and concretising the ideas of African Nationalism within the thinking of the ANCYL. This was a critical period, as the ANCYL was beginning to emphasise on the organisational weaknesses of the ANC and its connection with the African majority within the context of the difficult conditions in which it found itself as described earlier. The Youth League argued that it was for the more politically advanced rising generations to give the Congress such form and substances as would suit the organisation to its historic mission.

2.3.2.1 Two Streams of African Nationalism

In an attempt to elaborate and crystallise the ideological perspectives of the League, the document detailed two streams of African Nationalism, and located

itself within one of those streams. The Basic Policy document (http://www.anc.org.za/list.Policy Document.1948) argued as such:

Now it must be noted that there are two streams of African Nationalism. One centres round Marcus Garvey`s slogan - `Africa for the Africans`. It is based on the `Quit Africa` slogan and on the cry `Hurl the White man into the sea.`

This brand of African Nationalism is extreme and ultra revolutionary. There is another stream of African Nationalism (Africanism) which is moderate, and which the Congress Youth League professes. We of the Youth League take account of the concrete situation in South Africa, and realise that the different racial groups have come to stay. But we insist that a condition for inter-racial peace and progress is the abandonment of white domination, and such a change in the basic structure of South African society that those relations which breed exploitation and human misery will disappear. Therefore our goal is the winning of national freedom for African people, and the inauguration of a people`s free society where racial oppression and persecution will be outlawed.

The reference made to the two streams of African Nationalism was to become a recurring theme within the ANCYL and within the ANC, as the ideas of the ANCYL began to take root within the ANC. For example, the breakaway led by Robert Sobukwe, which resulted in the formation of the Pan African Congress, was essentially based on the two streams of African Nationalism. Influenced by a number of factors and developments, such as the interaction of the Youth Leaguers over time with W hite liberals and particularly the Communist Party, the second stream of African Nationalism, which realises that the different racial groups have come to stay, became the dominant stream within the ANCYL and the ANC.

The above highlights three very distinct politics that were introduced by the ANCYL into the ranks of the ANC:

(1) African Nationalism as the ideological paradigm espoused by the Youth League to take root in the ANC.

(2) A shift away from gentle-men like means of struggle to a more militant and confrontational ANC

(3) An ANC that was rooted in popular and mass struggles.

These politics were to be defining in the future of how the ANCYL operated and conceived of itself for generations and decades to come as we will be discussing in Chapter 4.