Treason Trial - Significance of The Trial

Significance of The Trial

In many ways, the trial and prolonged periods in detention strengthened and solidified the relationships between members of the multi-racial Congress Alliance. Rusty Bernstein wrote:

"Inter-racial trust and cooperation is a difficult plant to cultivate in the poisoned soil outside. It is somewhat easier in here were ... the leaders of all ethnic factions of the movement are together and explore each other's doubts and reservations, and speak about them without constraint. Coexistance in the Drill Hall deepens and recreates their relationships."

The trial and resulting periods of detention also allowed ANC leaders to consult about the direction of their struggle and the possibility of armed struggle. Ironically, the court found that the ANC was nonviolent just as the ANC was starting to question the effectiveness of this strategy.

In court, the 156 defendants sat in alphabetical order, visibly displayed the multiracial nature of the anti-apartheid movement. While the defendants sat side by side in court, they were strictly segregated in jail. When the trialists took over their own defense during the State of Emergency, they eventually convinced prison authorities to let them meet to plan their defense and white female defendants, white male defendants and black women defendants were brought to the African men's prison. Yet the prison authorities still sought to physically separate these defendants by race and gender in their meeting space. Mandela describes the practical dilemma the proponents of apartheid faced:

"The authorities erected an iron grille to separate Helen and Leon (as whites) from us and a second partition to separate them from Lilian and Bertha (as African women) ... Even a master architect would have had trouble designing such a structure.".