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Chapter Two The origins and development of the WCC’s struggle against apartheid: From Amsterdam to New Delhi
Introduction
The WCC was concerned about racism from the outset. As a Christian organization, it believed in peaceful methods to bring about social change in society. This was despite the violent nature of racism, particularly that of the apartheid system in South Africa. This chapter traces the origins and development of the WCC’s passive struggle against apartheid in the 19 years from 1948 to 1967. It provides background and analysis on how the WCC addressed the problem of apartheid during this period and paved the way for the setting up of the Programme to Combat Racism (PRC), the primary focus of this study. The inauguration of the WCC coincided with the coming to power of the National Party (NP) government in South Africa and the emergence of the apartheid system. This overlap influenced the nature of the WCC’s approach to the problem of apartheid during this period, and was the reason for the shift, after 20 years, to the establishment of the PCR.
The chapter is structured around the first three General Assemblies held in Amsterdam (1948–1953), Evanston (1954–1960), and New Delhi (1961–1967) in which the WCC’s policy towards apartheid was formulated and developed. It covers the various forums which focused their efforts on examining apartheid, namely the General Assemblies; the annual and bi-annual Central and Executive Committee meetings; consultations with church leaders; and a range of other participants with expertise on race relations. The statements and communiqués against racism which emerged from these forums organized by the WCC were rhetorically impressive. However, this rhetoric did not translate into specific action against apartheid and efforts to transform the South African society remained insignificant.
Apartheid itself was not a monolithic entity. 1 The evolution of the WCC’s policy against the system was itself influenced by variations in the conceptualization of apartheid. There were forms of racial segregation, for example that could be described as ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ apartheid.2 The former envisaged equal, yet totally separate development of racially diverse communities which the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) supported, but which never materialized.3 The latter was the inhumane underdevelopment and exploitation of black population groups that the NP government implemented in the pursuit of preserving the privileges and power of white South Africans. The WCC interacted with its South African associate churches and members and thus were able to keep abreast of developments and listen to their views on apartheid.
The apartheid regime’s first term in office in the last years of the 1940s and early 1950s saw the rolling out of racist laws to restructure South African society. In his analysis of the phenomenon of racism, Paul Maylam distinguished the racism of this period as the ‘formalization and institutionalization of racial differentiation and discrimination driven by the state and enforced by law’.4 This racism drew both passive and active reaction from various quarters across the world. The politics of the Cold War also influenced how various countries responded to the South African situation and thereby prolonged the survival of apartheid. From the mid 1950s until 1960, the NP government implemented the measures it had enacted to consolidate ‘negative’ apartheid in all spheres of South African society. Those who were amenable to so-called ‘positive’ apartheid still harboured the hope of improvement for the ‘non-whites’ in the country. Some remained passive whilst others actively opposed the apartheid system. This chapter suggests that the WCC was passive towards the apartheid government until mid March 1960.
It took the Sharpeville massacre on 21 March 1960 to expose the violence entrenched in the apartheid system; the world, including the WCC, was forced to look squarely at the political crisis in South Africa. Nevertheless, despite a decidedly marred reputation following the Sharpeville massacre, the NP government forged ahead with more repressive measures and silenced opposition in its pursuit to advance its ‘negative’ apartheid policy. However, reaction grew stronger. The world began to see more clearly the dimensions of the exploitative apartheid system.5 The decade of the 1960s was itself characterized by socio-political and economic conflicts which intensified in many parts of the world.6 These tensions also influenced the WCC, for it changed from silent to open criticism of apartheid, from 1961 onwards. This chapter contends that the WCC nonetheless retained its belief in passive methods to bring about social change in society. Theology, The Legacy of Beyers Naude (Stellenbosch: Sun Press, 2005), p. 35.
There is a wealth of information on the anti-apartheid struggle as a whole. For its part, this study primarily concentrates on the role the WCC played in its struggle, which has not received adequate scholarly attention. The study employs a narrative approach and engages with the broader existing literature on the global anti-apartheid struggle to arrive at a critical analysis and interpretation of the WCC’s approach to apartheid during this time.
The founding of the WCC in 1948 did not mark the beginning of the ecumenical Christian concern regarding racism; this concern emerged far earlier. The International Missionary Council (IMC) and the Oxford World Conference on Life and Work made the following declarations in 1928 and 1937 respectively:
Any discrimination against human beings on the grounds of race or colour, any selfish exploitation and any oppression of man by man, is a denial of the teaching of Jesus.7
Any assumption by any race or nation of supreme blood or destiny must be emphatically denied by Christians as without foundation in fact, and wholly alien to the heart of the Gospel.8
The IMC and the World Conference on Life and Work were the earlier ecumenical church bodies. They and others finally merged and formed the WCC in 1948. The idea behind establishing the WCC originated ten years earlier. The outbreak of the Second World War, however, put this on hold.9
During the war, Christians viewed the persecution of Jews by the Nazis as a religious matter. They were concerned about racism broadly. As a result churches in several nations conducted studies on racial justice and human rights. They also addressed other problems in an effort to contribute towards reconstructing the global society after the war. More importantly, the churches played an active role in the emergence of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in 1946. The Commission on the Churches in International Affairs (CCIA), in particular, assisted the United Nations (UN) to produce the best possible bill of human rights. The CCIA further educated the churches to support the UN bill.10 These efforts characterized the involvement of the Christian ecumenical movement towards a more articulated position on human rights and the global elimination of racism after the war.
Accordingly, the victims of racism and human rights violations worldwide demanded justice, equality and freedom. Black South Africans participated in the war, which liberated Europe from Nazi Germany and returned home with heightened expectations of securing their own freedom from white rule.11 The African National Congress (ANC), which represented the aspirations of the large majority of black South Africans, embraced the declaration of the Atlantic Charter of 1941 to its own situation. The ANC formulated political demands on the abolition of discrimination based on race and also demanded that all adults, regardless of race, be given the right to vote and be elected to parliament and other representative institutions.12
This tone and content of political resistance is evident in the activities of political activists of the time. Raymond Mhlaba’s introduction to the anti-apartheid struggle provides a window on this period and his life experience sheds light on the kind of resistance South Africans put up against the scourge of racism from the 1940s onwards. Mhlaba was a migrant worker from the rural village of Fort Beaufort. In 1942, he found employment in Port Elizabeth (PE) in order to support his parents and siblings. He stayed in Sidwell, a mixed area where Coloured, Indian, white and African people lived together as residents. He worked with Coloured women at the Nannucci Dry Cleaning and Launderers. These women recruited him to join the Non-European Laundry Workers Union in 1943. The following year he joined the PE local branch of the Communist Party in which all the racial groups openly discussed national and international politics as equals. This, Mhlaba professed, exposed him to true brotherhood and sisterhood which was preached but not practised by many Christians. He also became a member of the ANC and its Youth League and worked closely with the ANC Women’s League. Mhlaba became part of the ‘new blood’ which radicalized a moribund ANC from the mid 1940s onwards.13
Mhlaba’s urban life experience led him to intermingle with a wide range of South African citizens. He cooperated with Coloured women on a labour and gender front; he networked with communists on a non-racial political party front. He played an active role in the ANC which was the symbol and embodiment of Africans’ will to present a united national front against all forms of oppression.14 As a young person, he was a member of the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) and worked as a team with the ANC Women’s League as well as churches in Port Elizabeth.15 Mhlaba’s experience was not uncommon.16 His active life in the labour and liberation movements gives insight into the level of political activism and militancy which built up during the 1940s. His experience symbolized the cooperative efforts by Africans, Coloureds and Indians against racial and economic injustice in the country. This was the political atmosphere prevalent in South Africa by the time the next white general election was held in May 1948. The WCC was launched in August of the same year.
At its meeting a year earlier, the IMC had drawn attention to the extent of racial feeling in South Africa. It noted, on the one hand, the resurgence of pride of nation, race and culture among those long kept in subjugation. On the other, it witnessed the desire of some to maintain superiority for economic reasons, which they felt were under threat.17 The IMC’s observations were certainly justified; black South Africans were making increased demands for liberation from white rule. The NP, representing a white constituency, was contesting the general election on the platform of racial segregation to preserve white superiority. These were the circumstances in South Africa which preceded the inauguration of the WCC in 1948. It was at this juncture that the WCC was launched.
This backdrop illustrates the global movement towards greater equality. Explicit racial domination had lost its legitimacy by this time. Pertinently, the electoral victory of the NP in South Africa had become a burden on the conscience of the world church and presented a very real challenge to its integrity.18 At its General Assemblies, the meetings of the Central and Executive Committees and its consultations, the WCC began to deliberate and make pronouncements on apartheid.
Amsterdam
An international delegation of ecumenical Christians assembled in Amsterdam in August 1948, three months after the victory of the NP in the whites-only election in South Africa. Delegates were remorseful that patently, racism was still rife in various parts of the world. The following is a reported statement they made at this assembly:
Within our divided churches, there is much which we confess with penitence before the Lord of the Church, for it is in our estrangement from Him that all sin has its origin. It is because of this that the evils of the world have so deeply penetrated our churches, so that amongst us too there are worldly standards of success, class division, economic rivalry, a secular mind. Even where there are no differences of theology, language or
Scheme etc., imposed by the white minority government. The material conditions in African families necessitated that the youth stopped their schooling and worked to help support their families. In contrast, their white counterparts carried on with their normal and prosperous lives. The racial injustice that successive white governments perpetrated cost black South Africans immeasurable human harm. liturgy, there exist churches segregated by race and colour, a scandal within the Body of Christ. We are in danger of being salt that has lost its savour and is fit for nothing.19
This was how the Christians who officially set up the WCC expressed themselves at the first General Assembly. Many of them had witnessed first-hand the damage the Nazi doctrine of Aryan racial superiority had caused after the Second World War. The delegates singled out the racial segregation tolerated in South African (and American) churches for particular condemnation.20
Delegates from South Africa included G.B. Gerdener, F.H. Kirkby, T. Frederick, J. Dreyer, A. Kerr and J. Hunter, who represented the various denominations affiliated to the WCC. They were all white and represented churches segregated by race. In terms of South African law, they were also part of the white electorate and had participated in the exclusive general election that saw the NP victorious and ready to execute its racial segregation policy. However, despite their common race and eligibility to vote, they did not necessarily share the same views on race relations as the apartheid government. Nor was there agreement among them on the issue of race. As individual Christians present at this gathering, the deliberations jolted their consciences and spurred them on in the hope of addressing the disgrace of racial segregation in their country. More importantly, in protesting against discrimination, the assembly urged the churches in every country to work against segregation and above all, to observe such principles in their own membership and life.21 Richard Ambrose Reeves was appointed to the Executive Committee of the newly formed WCC.22 Although he had come from England to attend the assembly, he became the Anglican Bishop of Johannesburg the following year.23
The message from Amsterdam was clear: the WCC rejected racism. This signalled the beginning of a collision course between the WCC and the newly formed apartheid regime. There were no lines of communication established between the two, because both institutions were new. The responsibility of communicating the WCC’s rejection of racism in South Africa fell to the ecumenical Christians. The general tendency was that resolutions taken by representatives at global gatherings of churches were not readily endorsed and implemented in their home environments.24
1: Introduction
Chapter 2: The origins and development of the WCC’s struggle against apartheid: From Amsterdam to New Dehli
Chapter 3: The creation of the Programme to Combat Racism, c. 1968–1969
Chapter 4: The PCR struggle against apartheidn under the Uppsala mandate, 1970–1975
Chapter 5: The PCR struggle against apartheid under the Nairobi mandate, 1975–1982
Chapter 6: The PCR struggle against apartheid under the Vancouver mandate, 1983–1990
Chapter 7: The PCR struggle against apartheid under the Canberra mandate, 1991–1994
Chapter 8: Conclusion
List of Sources
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