It counters ruthless exploitation and racist discrimination by coming out more and more resolutely for its rights and social liberation. The peasantry, for its part, is joining gradually in the fight against racism and colonialism. Many of the peasants brought to the cities as labour are not allowed to stay there indefinitely, they are eventually forced to return to the countryside. They take back with them their experience of participation in labour organisations and close association with the working class, which influences their political position. They include not only blacks but also democratic and progressive whites who condemn and fight the apartheid regime.
Racism is criticised even by churches though in the past they collaborated with the regime.
For some time past, many church leaders have identified themselves in significant measure with the cause of justice regardless of the consequences, which may take the form of repression and persecution. The ANC is demonstrably a peace-loving people's movement, because the majority of the people of South Africa whom it has led for decades want nothing but peace. In the 1950s, the militant struggles led by the ANC were governed by the principle of nonviolence. But in 1960 the racists' armed police opened fire on unarmed people demonstrating in Sharpeville. It was the police, incited by Vorster himself, who murdered nearly 1,000 children in Soweto alone in 1976.