For white South Africans the late 1960s was a time of political calm, rising living standards, prosperity and sharing in the sustained economic boom of that period. Some blacks shared in the bounty, those for whom the opportunities for the accumulation of wealth, power and privilege through the bantustan and separate development programme proved irresistible. For most blacks, however, it was, in the aftermath of the suppression of the ANC and PAC and the repression of all radical political activity, a period of intensified exploitation, extensive and vigorous social control, demoralisation, fear and enforced and sullen acquiescence. In these conditions it was difficult to see how any serious organised political challenge to white minority domination could be mounted and whence it could come. Any organisation faced the prospect not only of immediate repression, but also the unenviable task of breaking through the demoralisation and fear that were major impediments to organisation-building and mobilisation.
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