IT HAS TAKEN many years of struggle to reach the point at which we are today. In that period, tens of thousands have been killed, injured imprisoned within South Africa. Thousands of others have suffered a similar fate in Nambia. The rest of Southern Africa has also seen enormous numbers of people die, economies forced to the verge of collapse and social programmes brought to a halt.
Precisely that scale of destruction has onlv served to confirm the view among the of apartheid violence lat iney dare not give up, but have to fight with everything they can lay their hands on, to end the system that has brought about so much suffering. It is that resolve and determination by millions of people which guarantees the defeat of the Pretoria regime and the liquidation of the apartheid system.
And yet there are those in this country who doubt the certainty of our victorv. hese calculate that ihe racist regime is so powerful, and the white minority so steadfast in its commitment to the maintenance of its domination, that the oppressed are condemned to a futile and self-destructive battering at the ramparts of the racist fortress. These positions have resulted in a policy which amounts to appeasement of the apartheid regime. these crimes to become a thing of the past, South Africa must become a democratic country, with guaranteed liberties for all citizens, with equal rights for everybody regardless of col our, race or sex.
Given the changing balance of strength in our country and the shift of the strategic-initiative into our hands there is a sense in which the apartheid forces are becoming the opposition to the ascendant democratic movement rather than the other wav round. the recent white elections demonstrate this point inasmuch as the Botha regime contested them on the specific platform of opposition to the ANC The boycott campaigns, from thei inception in the late 1950s, were aimed at the total isolation of apartheid South Africa. This objective is inviolate and neeas to be pursued witn even gicale vigour. At the same time we must take into account the changes that have taken place over time. In particular, as in almost every other field of human endeavour in South Africa, there has emerged a definable alternative democratic culture the people's culture permeated with and giving ex pression to the deepest aspirations of our peopie in struggle, immersea ir democratic enduring human values. Power As in politics, trade unionism, education. sport. region and mam other fields, these developments at the cultural level both contributed to and are part of the emergent alternative democratic power at whose head stands the ANC. • Without doubt the develop ing and vibrant culture of our people in struggle and its structures need to be supported, strengthened and enhanced In the same way as apartheid South Africa is being increasingly isolated in ternationally, within South Africa this people's culture is steadily isolating the intellectual and cultural apologists of apartheid The moment is upon us when we shall have to deal with the alternative structures that our people have created and are creating through struggle and sacrifice, as the genuine representative