By the end of the decade, the aparthy would deal with the opposition in more aggressive ways. In 1988, it would ban the United Democratic Front (UDF) and detain its leadership. However, UDF continued to function despite these measures. Eventually, the organization would hold a successful mass boycott of the elections that would show the rooting of noncompliance in society. The subsequent emergence of the Mass Democratic Movement (MDM) would continue boycotts and peaceful protests, with one of the biggest of them taking place in Cape Town in 1989. The color purple would become the symbol of the peaceful march.
Purple Reign is a personal account by Alison Ozinsky, one of the participants of the protest. This document is addressed to a wide audience and aims to provide a record of the events from a first-person perspective. The author describes in detail the route of the march, as well as the actions taken by the protesters, including an act of disobedience when the whole march sits down in the road at the police’s command to disperse (Ozinsky 1989). The author emphasizes that the protesters sought compromise with the police, as they peacefully sat down and not a single participant resorted to violence. Whereas the leaders of the protests attempt to negotiate with the police, all of the participants of the march brace themselves as the police start aiming watercannons at them. Then the police start shooting people and leave purple stains on them with the burst of water. The author describes in detail the overall mood of the protests and shares the emotions and feelings that accompanied the event.
Personal records of important civil events like this serve as a valuable source of information about the event, as it provides an emotional response of the people involved. This source is reliable in a historical sense, as it provides the human attitudes and vision of the events. Purple Reign was written in 1989, almost at the end of the fight for freedom and reflects the hopeful vision of the future, that the victory is about to be achieved. Alison writes, “If it was a war, then the peaceful protest was the victor.” (Ozinsky 1989). Thus, this document provides a deep look into the emotional environment of the people at that time.
Work Cited
Ozinsky, A. “Purple Reign.” 1989: Democratic Revolutions at the Cold War’s End: A Brief History with Documents, edited by Padraic Kenney, Bedford, 2009.