100 Years of ANC foreign policy

An African National Congress (ANC) foreign policy or international relations strategy is as old as the movement itself: a whopping 100 years! There are very many ANC, South African Communist Party (SACP) and South African Congress of Trade Union (SACTU) leaders and activists who played a critical role in defending and promoting the theory and practice of internationalism, international solidarity, world peace, African unity, African renaissance and an African agenda. Let us in the year of the centenary mention some of them. They are: John Langalibalele Dube, Pixley ka Seme, Z. K. Mathews, Inkhosi Albert Luthuli, Walter Sisulu, Yusuf Dadoo, Brian Bunting, Ray Simons, Joe Slovo, Johnny Makhatini, Alfred Nzo, Kader Asmal, M.P Naicker, Dennis Brutus, Alex La Guma, O.R Tambo, Mark Shope, Duma Nokwe, Gertrude Shope, Ruth Mompathi, Nelson Mandela, Reginald September, Thabo Mbeki, Jacob.G Zuma, and others like Pan-African Congress leaders Robert Sobukwe and Black Conscious leader Steve Biko. The white minority embarked on efforts to create their “white state” in a black land, which culminated in the elections in September 1910 to consolidate the Union of South Africa, with the South African Party (SAP) winning comfortably. The primary aim was to seek reconciliation within the white community between descendents of the English and Dutch who had engaged in the two Anglo-Boer Wars of 1880 to 1881 and 1899 to 1902