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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. [Volume 39, Issue 8. April 1976]

The All African Convention:

The All African Convention:

The All African Convention, a political organisation which had been founded in 1935, won massive support among Blacks when it called for the rejection of all dummy bodies and advocated a policy of non-collaboration with the minority government. They made this bold stand at a time when Black intellectuals were vying with one another for positions on the bogus institutions for the "child race".

The All African Convention argued that to continue to operate the segregated institutions for any reason what soever was to accept the inferiority of the Black man and to involve the population in working the machinery of thier own oppression.

To implement the policy of non-collaboration a federation of political parties called the Non-European Unity Movement was formed. It comprised such organisations as the All African Convention, the ANC, and the Comm page 17 unist Party of South Africa. But there was soon a division among members of the Unity Movement: "The younger men wanted to boycott the body entirely, where as the older men, seeing that it was inevitable, waned to make it work in the hope of gathering a crumb or two. The views of the elders prevailed......." 1.

The policy of non-collaboration failed. The ANC and the Communist Party, whose leaders were anxious to use the dummy-bodies, withdrew from the Unity Movement. Though the policy of non-collaboration did not succeed it was certainly the correct path as events bowed later and still do today.

The Unity Movement still exists today operating from [unclear: nodest] quarters in Lusaka, Zambia. In 1971 13 members of the Unity Movement were tried and convicted under South Africa's Terrorism Act. The charges were wide [unclear: anging] and covered the period 1963 to 1970, alleging that the accused "endangered the maintenance of law and order and sought to overthrow the government by force of arms". The 13 were sentenced to terras of imrisonment ranging from five to eight years.