The recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1960, Chief Albert Luthuli made three significant contributions in the realm of international relations.
His life exemplified his legacy as a great South African, Southern African and global citizen. Born in 1898 outside Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, Luthuli’s formative educational and political years were spent in KwaZulu-Natal.
In many ways it was the European “scramble for Africa” in the late 19th century that arbitrarily partitioned the continent into “spheres of influence” and African resistance to this oppression formed his political consciousness.
In his acceptance speech of the peace prize, Luthuli said: “I accept it also as an honour, not only to South Africa, but to the whole continent of Africa, to all its people, whatever their race, colour or creed.” As the first African recipient of the peace prize, Luthuli used his platform in Oslo to make not only a nationalist appeal, but a pan-Africanist one. He recognised the indivisibility of the struggle for decolonisation on the African continent and, significantly — certainly to the European powers — couched the South African struggle in a wider continental perspective.
When the Organisation of African Unity was finally formed on May 25 1963, of the seven principles guiding the organisation, it is instructive that a commitment to the total liberation of the African continent loomed large.
Secondly, in his Nobel lecture, Luthuli used the opportunity to expand the notion of a threat to peace in international relations. He said there are “such evils as white supremacy and racial discrimination, all of which are a threat to the peace.” This is significant because the policies of racial discrimination and apartheid made the Republic of South Africa — one of the four African founder member-states of the United Nations — a threat to peace.
Matters of a threat to peace fall under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, demanding the attention of the Security Council.
The 1960s and 1970s witnessed a growing number of independent African states spearheading attempts to impose mandatory sanctions against South Africa through the Security Council. These attempts were periodically thwarted by the triple veto of the United States, the United Kingdom and France. In 1974, following the adoption of the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid Res 3068 (XXVIII) of 30 Nov 1973, South Africa was suspended from the General Assembly.
Third, and perhaps most significantly, was Luthuli’s unflinching commitment to human rights and peace, despite persistent provocation by the apartheid state. Elected Chief of Groutville in 1935, he was deposed by the apartheid state in 1952 for refusing to resign from the leadership of the African National Congress. The state also tried him for treason, and he was banned and imprisoned.
It is important to reflect on Luthuli’s consistent commitment to human rights and peace, when the “war against terrorism” has many of my colleagues — both in South Africa and in the US — engaging in selective amnesia when it comes to the human rights of Afghanis, Iraqis, and other citizens of the globe.
In an Orwellian irony, discourses about security have been used by those who should know better in the academy to justify human rights abuses of the most egregious kind globally.
The one thing that stands out about Chief Luthuli, I must say, is his consistency.
Many remember Luthuli in his capacity as president of the ANC, or his merging of traditional African customs and Christianity.
I prefer to remember Luthuli the internationalist and human rights activist, who challenged conventional wisdom, and not only understood the world but sought to change it.
Professor Tandeka C Nkiwane is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Urban and Built Environment Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, which hosted the Luthuli Memorial Lecture this week