Why South African and other activists rallied to support Liberation

Amandla, the Xhosa and Zulu word meaning power, was repeatedly responded to with “Ngawethu” – “the power is ours” – at The Liberation Movement’s Un Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination event that commemorated South Africa’s Sharpeville massacre of peaceful protestors 65 years ago. The upraised clenched fist that accompanied the defiant words symbolises solidarity and support which was a key symbol of the Black South African liberation movement. 

A dozen British-based South Africans joined many other community and trade union activists at the central London event on 21 March that had a decidedly internationalist outlook. Among the speakers was Finland’s first Black woman member of parliament Bella Asha Maria Belaynesh Forsgrén,  a leading Green League politician, who could not attend in person but sent a powerful video message. Aged three, Bella was adopted by a Finnish couple in her native Ethiopia and taken by them to Finland where she grew up. A former student leader at university, she first became a local councillor in Jyväskylä, a city in central Finland known internationally for its winter sports. In 2019 she was elected to the Finnish parliament, aged 27, its second youngest member ever, where she is serving a second term. 

She said: “The UN commemoration of the Sharpeville massacre reminds us that racial injustice still exists today. It’s not just about remembering the past but also taking action for a fair and equal future. Every person, no matter their race and background deserves respect and dignity.”

Shockingly she said studies had shown Finland, which according to some commentators, is the world’s happiest nation, to be one of the most racist countries in Europe. “Over 80 per cent of Finns have experienced or witnessed racism,” commented Bella.

She singled out employment, housing and education as areas where “structural racism” was rife. Roma, who have been in Finland for generations, and Somali migrants and their Finnish-born children faced the most racism.

Bella referred to my 10-year campaign to get the Finnish sweets making giant, Fazer, to remove a racist gollywog image of a Black person from its liquorice packets in 2008. British jam maker Robertson had removed a similar offensive image from its products seven year earlier.

Bella urged: “Let us stand together against discrimination and work for a world where everyone is treated equally.”

Jawed Siddiqi, the Sheffield based chair of grassroots The Monitoring Group, said: “It’s fashionable among politicians, including the Labour government, to today demonise Black people, Muslims, migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. To see them as ‘illegal’ and therefore legitimate targets for hatred. We must resist this with all our might.”

South Africa’s brave and principled decision to mount a legal case at the International Court of Justice against the genocide of Palestinian at the hands of the settler colonialist Israeli war machine was applauded at the meeting moderated by TLM co-chair Deborah Hobson, secretary of Unite’s National Publishing and Media Branch, which sponsored the event. Unite nationally is among several unions that also supports TLM (liberationmovement.org.uk).

Fahima Mahomed, with whom I have appeared on television in support of the Palestinian cause, was among the South African speakers. The Durban-born political commentator, who travelled to Britain with her parents at the age of eight, told the well-attended meeting in the big boardroom of Unite the Union’s London and Eastern headquarters: “South Africa’s stance is deeply rooted in its own history, making its support for Palestine not just a political position but a moral and historical obligation.”

She added: “South Africa has been one of the most vocal and consistent supporters of Palestine, drawing direct parallels between its own history of apartheid and Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. The ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), has long framed the Palestinian struggle as a continuation of South Africa’s own fight against white minority rule.”

The country had a deep understanding of oppression due to its own experience with the racist apartheid under which its Black majority population lived during almost half a century of white minority rule from 1948 to 1994. 

Its first Black president Nelson Mandela famously said: “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

Sabelo Sabisi, secretary of the Men’s Guild of South Africa, which the next day held an event at the Sharpeville monument in Brixton I helped get built in 1987, reminded attendees of the heroic role played by too often forgotten Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC) leader Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe. It was the PAC that organised the widespread protests in South African against the governing regime’s law that compelled the Black population to carry identity pass books in areas where white people lived. While organising the nationwide anti-pass laws protest, Sobukwe had anticipated the possibility of a heavy-handed police response. He had even written to the South African Commissioner of police on March 16 to warn of his plans to launch a "sustained, disciplined, non-violent campaign against the pass laws".

In the letter, Sobukwe asked the police to "refrain from actions that might lead to violence".  As he explained, "it is unfortunately true that many white policemen, brought up in the hothouse of South Africa, regard themselves as the champions of white supremacy and not a law officers...I therefore appeal to you to instruct your men not to give impossible demands to my people...We will surrender ourselves to police for arrest. If told to disperse, we will. But we cannot be expected to run helter-skelter because a trigger-happy, African-hating young white police officer has given....thousands of people three minutes within which to remove their bodies from his immediate environment."

On the afternoon of 21 March 1960, more than 5,000 demonstrators marched peacefully on Sharpeville police station purposely without their passes. Unprovoked, officers opened fire, shooting at least 91 of them – many in the back – as they fled the scene in panic. More than 230 people, mostly young students, were injured. The official figure of 69 dead has recently been disputed by independent American scholars who have done new research.

The notorious Sharpeville Massacre, as it became known, sparked worldwide revulsion against South Africa’s apartheid rulers and was the beginning of the end for them.

African National Congress (ANC) London branch secretary Xolani Xala praised The Liberation Movement for holding the event annually and he brought revolutionary greetings from the South African government. “From the bottom of my heart, and on behalf of the people of South Africa, we sincerely thank you.”

He traced the political work between the ANC and me to when I managed to get Mandela to meet the parents of murdered Black teenager Stephen Lawrence in London when he visited in 1993.

Stirringly Xolani said: “We will soldier on until we achieve racial justice. Our victory is near.” The young martyrs of Sharpeville died to ensure “we shall have our freedom”.

• Marc Wadsworth is co-founder of The Liberation Movement, which relies solely on the generosity of supporters to do its work. So please make a donation.