Abstract
This article aims to understand what role Steve Biko and the Black Consciousness Movement, and the Soweto Uprising, played in Christian activism between the early 1970s and late 1980s. The question is: did the Black Consciousness Movement and the Soweto Uprising influence Christian activists to engage differently with notions such as reconciliation during the struggle against apartheid? The article revisits the actions and thinking of Christian activists before 1994 to understand some of their views on reconciliation, but most importantly, to understand their interactions, engagement with the Black Consciousness Movement and the Soweto Uprising. The article focuses on some of the church leaders and liberation theologians who were inspired and encouraged by Black Consciousness movements, including Allan Boesak and Desmond Tutu. To revisit their thinking and actions, in the heart of the struggle against apartheid, may help us understand current struggles on reconciliation, particularly in connection with the new generation of activists known as the Fallists. We may discover that the new generation is opening ‘old or new’ debates around reconciliation in South Africa.
Highlights
Introduction and backgroundThis article will focus on the new generation of activists that came to be known as the ‘fallists’
The National Initiative for Reconciliation (NIR) that had been launched at a meeting organised by African Enterprise in 1985, various churches, theologians and ministers, endorsed a programme of action that called for the necessary steps to be taken towards the elimination of all forms of legislated discrimination in South Africa
What can we learn from previous generations of Christian activism publicised through these various declarations? The church took time to reflect and act in another time considering how to engage with the oppressive system of apartheid and the resulting structural injustices for the majority of the population. In light of such strong declarations in the past, what can the Church gain from understanding and engaging with the current milieu of expressions and activism taking place today among young people known as the fallists? Looking at the church today in South Africa is there embodiment of reconciliation between races and economic classes? The questions about reconciliation advanced at the times of the drafting of the Kairos Document (1985) are similar to those which have emerged from the fallists discourses
Summary
Research Project Registration: Project Leader: S.F. de Beer Project Number: 86233689. The article revisits the actions and thinking of Christian activists before 1994 to understand some of their views on reconciliation, but most importantly, to understand their interactions, engagement with the Black Consciousness Movement and the Soweto Uprising. The article focuses on some of the church leaders and liberation theologians who were inspired and encouraged by Black Consciousness movements, including Allan Boesak and Desmond Tutu. To revisit their thinking and actions, in the heart of the struggle against apartheid, may help us understand current struggles on reconciliation, in connection with the new generation of activists known as the Fallists. We may discover that the new generation is opening ‘old or new’ debates around reconciliation in South Africa
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