A-GRADE EXEMPLAR ESSAY Edexcel A-Level History Paper 1 question 18/20 marks "Township revolts were the main reason the nationalist party began to negotiate to end apartheid" to what extent do you agree with this view?' Awarded for strong structure with evidence of good subject understanding
In thi...
Edexcel A-Level History
South Africa, 1948– 94: from apartheid state to ‘rainbow nation’
L.Archer
"Township revolts were the main reason the nationalist party began to negotiate to end
apartheid" to what extent do you agree with this view?
The township revolts were an essential factor that propelled the National party towards
needing to negotiate to end apartheid as it was a leading factor in the failure of Total
Strategy as well as a key reason for the declared State of Emergency. It was all of these
factors combined that gave the National party no choice but to begin the move toward
ending apartheid, however it was undeniably the township rebellions that catalyzed the
other factors to the extent that made them such impactful events.
The civil unrest and rebellion of the Black communities in the homelands was a necessary
factor in creating substantial chaos and fear that forced the National Party to consider the
end of Apartheid. It was a key factor that prevented Botha’s Total strategy from succeeding,
with its aim of restoring order to South Africa. The situation in the townships was
widespread consistent violence and rebellions against the police, to which the police
responded by shooting and beating unarmed black people. This was partly motivated by the
surge of popularity of the black consciousness movement, which provided a new identity for
Black people to fight for, as well as the increase in support for anti-apartheid organizations
like the UDF. The Black people in the townships wanted to be ungovernable, spurred on by
the speech from Tambo over the ANC radio station that encouraged black workers to take
up arms against the white people and cause enough fear to force the government to listen
to their requests at dismantling apartheid. A prime example of this was Alexandra in 1986,
when youth activists carried out attacks on police homes and the police fired on the crowd,
in all, 27 people were killed. The violence was not only with the white police, but also
internally; those who tried to work within the law, like the councilors that governed the
townships, were labelled as traitors and collaborators with the government and they were
faced with targeted attacks and ‘necklacing’. The aim of all this violence was to make their
struggle unignorable, to make them ungovernable, and they made it clear that the violence
would not cease until Apartheid was repealed. If it was not for the militant rebellion from
the townships putting pressure on the police and government, I do not think that the
National Party would have begun negotiations.
Botha’s decision to begin negotiations was also spurred on by the apparent failure of his
Total Strategy policy. The National Party Government initially implemented Total Strategy in
order to restore faith in his government. He repealed the Mixed Marriages act in 1985 and
Pass laws in 1986, as well as other factions of petty apartheid in an attempt to amend some
of the instability the country was facing. However, many thought that these changes were
purely cosmetic and caused no significant change in the injustices the Black population was
facing. Issues like unequal education, voting rights and race registration remained, and the
living conditions in Townships did not improve. Therefore, an important aim of Total
Strategy was not achieved: restoring order to South Africa. Another aim of Total strategy
was to fight communism in surrounding countries and gain esteem from other countries
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