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IOL News
22-05-2025
- Politics
- IOL News
A journey of peace: the significance of the Salt March
Mahatma Gandhi with Sarjojini Naidoo, a powerful leader in the Indian struggle, during the Salt March. Image: Supplied IN 2005, there was a resurgence of interest around the world in nonviolence. It was the 75th anniversary of the famous Dandi March organised by Mahatma Gandhi. Many peace activists began to consider observing this anniversary in some symbolic way and to re-commit to nonviolence and peaceful means of resolving conflict. In Durban, a group of people came together under the banner of the Gandhi Development Trust to re-enact this famous march and dubbed it the Gandhi Luthuli Salt March. It symbolically joined the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Charter, drawn up in 1955 in Kliptown at the Congress of the People, with the 75th anniversary of the Dandi March. The Freedom Charter was drawn up at a time when Chief Albert Luthuli was president of the ANC. This prompted the name Gandhi Luthuli Salt March and in short, the Annual Salt March. This year, we recall that 95 years ago on April 6, 1930, Mahatma Gandhi and 78 volunteers began their nonviolent defiance march from Sabarmathi Ashram in Ahemdabad in India to the coastal town of Dandi. This turned out to be one of the largest and most effective defiance campaigns in the world in which millions of people throughout India participated by defying the unjust monopoly on salt by the British colonisers of India. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ The British not only prohibited the manufacture of salt but also imposed a tax on it. Salt is an essential ingredient on the table of every person regardless of status, race, class, caste or gender. This prohibition affected everyone, and the act of defiance against this law spread like wildfire across the length and breadth of India, drawing millions into this nonviolent campaign involving the making of salt. The band of 78 trained volunteers together with Gandhiji walked through hundreds of villages for 241 miles and for 24 days mobilising the communities as they marched, making their way to the seaside village known as Dandi. There they began to manufacture their own salt. Gandhiji led the march and having made the salt, he picked up a fistfull of salt and said to a captive audience of international and local journalists: "With this I will shake the foundation of the British Empire." The impact of this little act was unprecedented. Not only was India shaken into action but the injustice of this law drew the attention of the world. There was widespread publicity throughout the country and the international press covered the stories of this protest. Attention was particularly drawn to the atrocities committed by the police. The unarmed peaceful protesters were beaten up, arrested and imprisoned. Mounted police stormed the marchers and threw blows on their heads but no one raised a hand to retaliate. Instead,, as the wounded fell, survivors continued to march and new bands of people came in. Sixty thousand people were imprisoned as a result of this civil disobedience and eventually the British were forced to agree to negotiate a settlement and the path to freedom of India was charted. India won its freedom 17 years later on August 15, 1947. The Dandi march has served as a beacon of hope to millions around the world who chose to use nonviolent means to attain freedom and it continues to inspire nonviolent resisters all over the world. We in South Africa too, mounted many nonviolent struggles. We also opted for a negotiated settlement. Let us be aware of the fact that the alternate could have been as ghastly and devastating as Gaza. We see the devastation of war in other parts of the world where not only people die but the entire environment is damaged to the extent that rebuilding from the destruction becomes a nightmare. Significantly in 2008, a pledge was made by the participants of the 5th Salt March. We reproduce a summary of it: "War and violence are destroying the lives of millions of people in the world. While thousands are killed, families are left destitute to suffer untold misery and deprivation. Further the violence of greed exploitation and corruption is causing poverty, misery and environmental degradation among millions who are left homeless and without work or shelter. We pledge our solidarity with the millions who have died and the billions who are living a life of poverty and we rededicate ourselves to the moral, and spiritual philosophy of nonviolent resistance against war, violence, greed and exploitation." From the outset, the Durban Salt March Committee agreed that this march would carry a clear message of peace, nonviolence, ubuntu, reconciliation and social cohesion, that in that spirit the march would be non-competitive and that it would not be a march to raise funds, but to draw everyone, rich and poor, to the march in solidarity. This march carries the message of the Freedom Charter. In particular, it draws attention to the important clause of the Charter which says: "South Africa shall strive to maintain world peace and the settlement of all international disputes by negotiation-not war. Peace and friendship amongst all our people shall be secured by upholding the equal rights, opportunities and status of all, within the country, in Africa and internationally." As we witness the inequalities in our society today, the widening gap between the wealthy and the poor, as we see the many challenges that our society faces in terms of access to basic necessities of life such as work, security, shelter, nourishment caring and education, we realise that although we are liberated, there is still much that we need to do to achieve both our dreams and the dreams of our forefathers, who sacrificed so much that South Africa may attain freedom. The Salt March 2025, in celebrating its 20th anniversary, seeks to invoke the spirit of compassion and love that all our scriptures speak about, so that together we can rid our community of corruption, of crime, of violence, and of wanton vandalism and build a strong, peaceful nation where ubuntu can once again prevail across the country among all South Africans. If this is your dream too, then let's get together in this march and contemplate on how we can together make a difference. The march start will start on May 25 at the Gandhi Phoenix Settlement in Bhambayi, Inanda, at 7.30am. Secure parking will be available at the Gandhi Luthuli Peace Park in Phoenix, from where a shuttle will bring you to the Gandhi Settlement. The march is a 4.5km walk from the Gandhi Settlement to the Gandhi Luthuli Peace Park. Ela Gandhi Image: File Ela Gandhi is the chairperson of the Gandhi Development and Phoenix Settlement Trusts. ** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media. THE POST
Eyewitness News
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Eyewitness News
Monument to post-apartheid South Africa's founding charter in ruins
JOHANNESBURG - In the shade of a tree on a sunny day, Isac Matate set up a rickety bookstand in a ragged square that was once a beacon for the struggle that ended apartheid in South Africa. Some of the books that Matate packed into the shelves held together with rope touched on the themes of the landmark: political history, black consciousness, the Bible. The site in Kliptown outside Johannesburg commemorates the Freedom Charter of principles that guided the decades-long fight that ended white-minority rule in 1994. Around 3,000 people of all races gathered here in a historic act of defiance 70 years ago to draw up the charter, which inspired the liberation movement and lives in the text of the post-apartheid constitution. Its principles, such as "The People Shall Govern", "All Shall Enjoy Equal Human Rights" and "There Shall be Work and Security", are written out around what was meant to be an eternal flame. But the flame has long been dead and the memorial - included last year in UNESCO's World Heritage Sites of "outstanding universal value" - is today in a state of neglect, vandalism and filth. "Kliptown square is in a horrible, decaying state. It is getting worse by the day," said local resident Sphamandla Matyeni, who was perusing the titles on Matate's bookstand. "It speaks of the fact that we do not treasure and protect what is deeply special to us as South Africans," he said. CONGRESS OF THE PEOPLE When Matate opened his bookshop after the memorial was inaugurated in 2005 by President Thabo Mbeki, his store was in a business complex built around a brick tower that once housed the "flame of freedom". It was a busy time with busloads of foreign tourists arriving every day, eager to learn about the struggle that ended apartheid just years before and see where its guiding text was adopted in June 1955 at the "Congress of the People". Business boomed, Matate said. There was a hotel, an eatery and a conference centre. "I sold books to people who attended events during the day and night," Matate said. "Now the square has disappeared to a point of no return." The business centre is stripped of its roof, electricity and plumbing. When the businesses moved out, the homeless moved in. Matate moved his bookstore outdoors, under a tree and reduced to just some shelves. Sales plummeted. "My wife left when she saw I couldn't provide for my family," he told AFP. Known officially as the Walter Sisulu Square of Dedication in honour of a hero of the anti-apartheid struggle, the monument is listed by UNESCO as one of 14 "Nelson Mandela Legacy Sites" of "human rights, liberation and reconciliation". DOWNHILL Post-apartheid South Africa has battled to realise some of the aspirations of the Freedom Charter, with the legacy of racial inequality keeping the country's levels of economic disparity among the highest in the world. As people weaved between taxis beeping for customers on a bustling street nearby, resident Smangele Mashiya said the Kliptown memorial's fortunes were hurt by the international shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic. Then in 2021 local political unrest "pushed it further downhill", he said. As locals bemoan the lost opportunities of having a key landmark in their neighbourhood, a spokesman for the Johannesburg Property Company, which manages the site, told AFP it was appointing a team to oversee its "adaptive reuse and regeneration". "This place played an important role in our lives as young people," said tour guide Jabulani Nzimande. "I started doing my walking tours here a long time ago and through that I was able to get the opportunity to do the training course," he said. "But visitors are not coming here like they did before," he said, citing fears of mugging as one of the problems. "We work voluntarily with the local police to keep the square safe," he said. "We want to see the place regaining its status.'
