Sign up to access the complete lesson and track your progress!
Unlock This CourseYou have seen how the world reacted with shock to Sharpeville, Soweto and the death of Steve Biko. This lesson asks the bigger question: by 1978, did any of it put apartheid in real danger?
Key terms:
As African and Asian colonies became independent and joined the UN, votes against apartheid grew. In November 1962 the General Assembly asked members to cut diplomatic and trade links with South Africa. In 1973 it agreed a convention calling apartheid a crime against humanity, and in 1974 it suspended South Africa from taking part in its work. But the Assembly could only ask. It could not force any country to act.
South Africa was barred from the 1964 Olympics and expelled from the Olympic movement in 1970. In 1968 Vorster refused to accept an England cricket team that included Basil D'Oliveira, a Coloured player born in Cape Town, so the tour was cancelled. In 1969-70 the Stop the Seventy Tour protests in Britain, led by Peter Hain, disrupted a Springbok rugby tour and got the 1970 cricket tour called off. In 1977 Commonwealth leaders signed the Gleneagles Agreement to discourage sporting contact.
In August 1963 the Security Council called on countries to stop selling weapons to South Africa, but this was voluntary. Britain stopped most sales in 1964. France kept selling, including Mirage jets. After Biko's death and the bans of October 1977, the Security Council made the arms embargo compulsory on 4 November 1977. Every member voted for it.
Sport hurt because white South Africans loved rugby and cricket. Being shut out told them, in a way speeches never could, that the world rejected their system. Even so, a lost cricket tour did not change a single law.
The countries with real power over South Africa were its trading partners, and they did not want to use it.
In the 1960s South Africa was shielded by buffer states: the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique, white-ruled Rhodesia, and South West Africa (Namibia), which South Africa ruled itself. Guerrilla fighters trained abroad could not easily reach its borders. Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland became independent between 1966 and 1968, but they were small and depended on South Africa for jobs, trade and transport, so they were no danger.
Further north it was different. The Organisation of African Unity, formed in 1963, backed the liberation movements, and Tanzania and Zambia gave the ANC in exile a home.
The big change came in 1975, when Angola and Mozambique became independent under governments friendly to the ANC. The shield now had holes in it. MK set up training camps in Angola, and recruits who fled after Soweto could be trained and sent back through Mozambique. South African troops invaded Angola in 1975 but had pulled out by early 1976. Rhodesia's white government was also fighting a guerrilla war it was slowly losing. This was a growing threat for the future more than a present danger.
It never died. The Freedom Charter gave the struggle a clear aim. Sharpeville and Soweto turned world opinion against apartheid. Mandela in prison and Biko in death became symbols known across the world. Soweto forced the government to drop the Afrikaans rule and produced a new generation that had lost its fear.
Not one main apartheid law was repealed. Each wave of protest was followed by harsher laws. By 1978 the ANC and PAC had been banned for eighteen years, their leaders were in prison or exile, and the Black Consciousness organisations had been banned too. MK was still too weak to fight a real war inside South Africa.
Against all this stood a very strong state. It had by far the strongest army in southern Africa, paid for by defence spending that rose steeply in the 1970s, a large police force, and security laws that allowed detention without trial. White voters stood behind it: in the election of November 1977, weeks after Biko's death, the National Party won 134 of the 165 seats, its biggest victory ever.
So by 1978 apartheid was shaken but not in danger of falling. It was more isolated, more costly to defend and facing angrier opponents at home and on its borders than ever before. The threats were real, but they were warnings, not yet a crisis.
Don't write that the UN imposed trade sanctions in the 1970s. Only the arms embargo was compulsory, and only from 1977. Don't treat the General Assembly and the Security Council as the same thing: the Assembly could only ask, while the Council could order but was held back by the veto. And don't say apartheid was close to collapse in 1978. The government had just won its biggest election victory.
'The main threat to apartheid in the years 1955-78 was international opposition.'
How far do you agree? Explain your answer.
You may use the following in your answer:
You must also use information of your own. [16 marks]
International opposition did threaten apartheid, but I agree only partly, because resistance inside South Africa was the greater threat and drove the world's reaction.
International opposition grew steadily. As new African and Asian states joined the United Nations, the General Assembly asked members in 1962 to cut trade links, and in 1974 it suspended South Africa. Sports boycotts, such as expulsion from the Olympic movement in 1970, hurt white pride. Most seriously, in November 1977 the Security Council imposed a compulsory arms embargo. However, this pressure had clear limits. Britain, France and the USA vetoed trade sanctions in 1977 and kept investing, and Armscor, set up in 1968, meant South Africa could arm itself.
The Soweto Uprising was a more direct threat. From June 1976 unrest spread across the country and lasted into 1977, and the government had to drop its Afrikaans rule. Thousands of young people left to join MK, and some foreign investors began to pull money out. Unlike a UN vote, this was something the government could not ignore. Yet it took many months of force to put down, and the bans of October 1977 removed the Black Consciousness organisations.
A third threat was the change on South Africa's borders. Until 1975 the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique, with Rhodesia, acted as buffer states. When the two colonies became independent in 1975, MK gained camps in Angola and routes back into the country. This was a separate threat, but it mattered mainly because Soweto supplied MK with recruits, and by 1978 MK was still too weak to fight a real war.
Overall, none of these threats was close to ending apartheid by 1978: the National Party won 134 of 165 seats in 1977. But judged by which threat the government found hardest to control, and which one drove the world to act, resistance at home was the main threat. The government could build its own weapons and rely on Western vetoes, but force at home only sent thousands of new recruits to MK. The world also acted only after events inside South Africa: the compulsory arms embargo followed Soweto, Biko's death and the 1977 bans. International opposition followed resistance and did not lead it, so it was an important threat but not the main one.
What lifts this to the top level: it covers three aspects (one not in the bullets), argues both sides with precise facts, and reaches a judgement using stated criteria: which threat was hardest to control and which drove the world to act.
An answer that uses only the two bullets cannot reach the top level, so plan a third aspect first. Here the neighbours or MK both work. The statement covers 1955-78, so use the whole key topic and show links between threats, such as the world reacting to Soweto. For more on this question type, see the Exam Skills lesson Paper 1 Question (c): The 16-Mark How Far Do You Agree Essay.