One Settler, One Bullet was a rallying cry and slogan originated by the Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA), the armed wing of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), during the struggle of the 1980s against apartheid in South Africa. The slogan grimly parodied the African National Congress's slogan 'One Man, One Vote', which eventually became 'One Person, One Vote'. It is not to be confused with the controversial protest song "Dubul' ibhunu" (Shoot the Boer).
The slogan was never officially endorsed by the PAC but often used by party members during rallies. After the dismantling of apartheid in 1994, PAC officials have repeatedly distanced themselves and the party from the slogan and called it a "war cry from its armed wing" incompatible with its "current reconcillatory stand". [1]
By 1991, when the fight against apartheid neared its end, PAC General Secretary Benny Alexander attempted to redefine a settler: he called it a white or Asian person participating in the oppression of indigenous people. He classified people into three groups, "indigenous" people, Whites and Asians whose sole allegiance is to the nation and who have no home elsewhere, and "settlers". [2]
However, even after 1991, grassroots sympathizers of the PAC at times interpreted the slogan as a call for attacks on whites in general and certain attacks on whites, such as the 1993 killing of US Anti-Apartheid activist Amy Biehl, were seen as directly motivated by the slogan. [3]
In October 1999 during the funeral of former APLA soldier Sibusiso Madubela, the perpetrator of the 1999 Tempe military base shooting, which was targeted against whites, PAC supporters chanted the slogan. The funeral attendees were fired upon by police and three were injured. [4]
In 2015, student activist group Rhodes Must Fall and other affiliated movements revived the slogan by chanting "One Settler One Bullet" at rallies at the University of Cape Town and by statements on social media. [5]
The first modern humans are believed to have inhabited South Africa more than 100,000 years ago. In 1999, UNESCO designated the region the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage site. South Africa's first known inhabitants have been referred to as the Khoisan, the Khwe and the San. Starting in about 1,000 BCE, these groups were then joined by the Bantu tribes who migrated from Western and Central Africa during what is known as the Bantu expansion.
The Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA), formerly known as Poqo, was the military wing of the Pan Africanist Congress, an African nationalist movement in South Africa. In the Xhosa language, the word 'Poqo' means 'pure'.
Toyi-toyi is a Southern African dance used in political protests in South Africa.
The Soweto uprising was a series of demonstrations and protests led by black school children in South Africa during apartheid that began on the morning of 16 June 1976.
A Volkstaat, also called a Boerestaat, is a proposed White homeland for Afrikaners within the borders of South Africa, most commonly proposed as a fully independent Boer/Afrikaner nation. The proposed state would exclude Afrikaans-speaking Coloureds but accept South Africans of English ancestry and other White South Africans, if they accept Afrikaner culture and customs.
Amandla in the Nguni languages Xhosa and Zulu means "power". The word was a popular rallying cry in the days of resistance against apartheid, used by the African National Congress and its allies. The leader of a group would call out "Amandla!" and the crowd would respond with "Awethu" or "Ngawethu!", completing the South African version of the rallying cry "power to the people!". The word is still associated with struggles against oppression.
The Afrikaner Volksfront was a separatist umbrella organisation uniting a number of right-wing Afrikaner organisations in South Africa in the early 1990s.
Gugulethu is a township in the Western Cape, South Africa and is 15 km from Cape Town. Its name is a contraction of igugu lethu, which is Xhosa for our pride. The township was established along with Nyanga in the 1960s.
Afrikaner nationalism is a nationalistic political ideology created by Afrikaners residing in Southern Africa during the Victorian era. The ideology was developed in response to the significant events in Afrikaner history such as the Great Trek, the First and Second Boer Wars and the resulting anti-British sentiment that developed among Afrikaners and opposition to South Africa's entry into World War I.
Potlako Kitchener Leballo was an Africanist who led the Pan Africanist Congress until 1979. Leballo was co-founder of the Basutoland African Congress in 1952, a World War II veteran and primary school headmaster.
Prior to the arrival of the European settlers in the 17th century the economy of what was to become South Africa was dominated by subsistence agriculture and hunting.
Internal resistance to apartheid in South Africa originated from several independent sectors of South African society and took forms ranging from social movements and passive resistance to guerrilla warfare. Mass action against the ruling National Party (NP) government, coupled with South Africa's growing international isolation and economic sanctions, were instrumental in leading to negotiations to end apartheid, which began formally in 1990 and ended with South Africa's first multiracial elections under a universal franchise in 1994.
This article covers the history of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania, once a South African liberation movement and now a minor political party.
Letlapa Mphahlele is a member of the National Assembly of South Africa who represents the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania. He is from Manaleng in the Limpopo Province.
On 8 October 1993, Mzwandile Mfeya, Sandiso Yose, twins Samora and Sadat Mpendulo and Thando Mtembu were shot dead in a South African Defence Force (SADF) raid on an alleged base of the Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA), the Pan Africanist Congress' military wing, at the Mpendulo family home in the Northcrest suburb of Mthatha. The house belonged to a PAC member Sigqibo Mpendulo, the father of Samora and Sadat. According to PAC and police sources in the Transkei, the five victims were killed in their beds. The raid was authorised by President F. W. de Klerk.
Robben Island Prison is an inactive prison on Robben Island in Table Bay, 6.9 kilometers (4.3 mi) west of the coast of Bloubergstrand, Cape Town, South Africa. Nobel Laureate and former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela was imprisoned there for 18 of the 27 years he served behind bars before the fall of apartheid. Since then, three former inmates of the prison have gone on to become President of South Africa.
"Dubul' ibhunu", translated as shoot the Boer, as kill the Boer or as kill the farmer, is a controversial anti-apartheid South African song. It is sung in Xhosa or Zulu. The song originates in the struggle against apartheid when it was first sung to protest the Afrikaner-dominated apartheid government of South Africa.
Sabelo Victor Phama [born Sabelo Gqwetha] was an Anti-Aparthaid Activist, Military Commander of Azanian People's Liberation Army APLA and Secretary of Defense in the Pan African Congress PAC. He is best known for organising a campaign of politically and racially motivated attacks on white civilians that took place in 1993; resulting in 24 deaths and 122 serious injuries.
Mother to Mother is an epistolary novel by South African writer Sindiwe Magona.
The Tempe military base shooting was a mass shooting that occurred 16 September 1999, at the Tempe military base near Bloemfontein, in South Africa. Lt. Sibusiso Madubela shot and killed eight people – including seven soldiers and one civilian – before he was shot dead by two soldiers. Four people were injured. During the shooting, Madubela at times pushed black people out of the way to shoot whites, and everyone killed or injured in the shooting was white. Prior to the shooting, his pay had been suspended following a period of absence without leave.