Gaspers (1967)

From the July 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

Czechoslovakia to create an internal money market (Financial Times, 24 May 1967).

“We will not unite with people whose aim is our disruption” (Draft resolution for conference of the Young Communist League).

“The Churches could make a great contribution to swing the African from his traditional attitude towards labour, and to teach him to work harder and to work regularly, the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, Mr. Botha, said … ‘I think that in this connection the Churches can be of great help, and that is, when rendering spiritual services, they must stress the value of sustained labour. In fact, it should be done in respect of the Whites as well…’ ” (Star, Johannesburg, 31 March 1967).

“Very regrettably a few Communist Trotskyites in certain sectors of our industry continue to mislead the good craftsmen and operatives … These Trotskyites, professional militants and other extremists whose only aim is disruption and to mislead good honest workers, are shockers” (Frank Taylor, chief of the Taylor Woodrow group in his annual report to shareholders, 17 May 1967).

“One man—one vote”, he said, would lead the country to a state of complete and utter chaos. A street sweeper would have as much say in running the country as the most brilliant and educated person. “No one could believe this to be right, “he added (Ian Smith, reported in Financial Times, 23 May 1967).

The Government’s policies have cut the standard of living of a great many workers. (The Observer—28.5.61).

… conquest is not internationally accepted as the way of changing frontiers (The Times—7.6.67).

Coffee seedlings burned

“Over 300.000 coffee seedlings were uprooted and burned on a nursery near Nairobi today as the first step in the Agriculture Ministry’s plan to restrict coffee production.

Mr. G. R. Medforth, the Kenya Coffee Board’s chief inspector, who supervised the burning, said about one million — or 20 per cent — of the plants in nurseries throughout the country were surplus and would be burned. Growers would get compensation.” The Times, 25.5.67.

Divide and rule (1986)

From the July 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

The ruling South African National Party's attempts at reforming apartheid have arrived too late, and are too little, to permit an orderly transfer of political power to the limited democracy of majority rule. Anger, fear, hostility and resistance have now made that process almost impossible — sentiments that are a direct result of the entrenched attitudes of the Afrikaner ruling class, and their strategy of divide and rule. For apartheid — based as it is on division not unity — has exacerbated other divisions within South African society, divisions potentially even more explosive than those between racial groups.

As administrative structures have broken down in the townships a power vacuum has been created which black groups are now competing to fill. Firstly there is intra-black political conflict between three main groups jockeying for position. The largest of these consists of the exiled African National Congress (ANC) together with its internal partner the United Democratic Front (UDF) — a loose umbrella organisation of about 600 heterogeneous local and national groups and the main federation of black trade unions — Cosatu. The UDF was set up in 1983 to oppose the new tricameral constitution, but now increasingly acts as the domestic wing of the ANC. The ANC's strategy uses three tactics: armed struggle which, although it receives high priority has had very little impact; organisation within South Africa itself which has proved highly successful; and activities abroad to extend foreign recognition of the ANC.

This alliance is challenged by the Azanian People's Organisation (Azapo) together with its partner the National Forum — an organisation of black consciousness groups. Azapo and its allies differ from the ANC/UDF on the question of the role of whites in the struggle against apartheid, but share similar goals and tactics, although it is relatively weak on the ground.

The third black political group is Chief Buthelezi's Inkatha movement based in the Kwazulu homeland. Buthelezi is reviled by the ANC, UDF and black consciousness groups and regarded as a collaborator with apartheid. He commands the support of six million Zulus and is encouraged by white businessmen because he opposes disinvestment. But his power base is essentially regional and tribal, located mainly in the rural homelands rather than in the townships. A group of trades unions supporting Inkatha has recently been formed to rival Cosatu which is likely to lead to a still wider gulf between the Zulus and other blacks.

However these political, tactical and personal divisions between black groups have, in recent weeks, been over-shadowed by divisions between blacks within the townships. In an attempt to foster the illusion of a degree of black self-government, local councils were created on which blacks had representation and responsibility for certain aspects of local administration — an attempt, some argued, to shift the burden of running apartheid to blacks themselves. As a result a faction of blacks grew up — councillors, local officials, small businesspeople, police — who felt that they were getting something out of the apartheid system status, and relative material well-being. Not surprisingly they were regarded with suspicion and hostility by township residents because of their close identification with "the system". In the present state of turmoil most of these councils (33 out of 38) no longer function and by June last year 240 black councillors, officials and mayors had resigned. Some have been the victims of violent attacks as punishment for their collaboration. Others have tried to fight back in a futile and misguided attempt to defend what they think they have. As a result in many townships two loosely structured, but opposed, groups have developed popularly known as the "vigilantes" and the "comrades". Violent clashes between them have contributed to the death toll of 1,500 over the past 19 months (although the majority have died at the hands of the South African security forces).

The “vigilantes" tend to be older, more conservative — the black "establishment" who have organised to defend what little they have and who are fearful of more militant activists. Initially vigilante groups emerged in the homelands in response to popular resistance against authoritarian and corrupt local administrations. More recently they have developed in urban areas in response to similar opposition to township councils. Increasingly there is evidence that their activities are condoned and even assisted by the security forces. At the Crossroads squatter camp recently, 32 people died and over 20,000 were left homeless as a result of vigilante activities assisted by the security forces who, it is alleged, provided both weapons and protection so that the forced removal of the squatters could be achieved.

Opposing the vigilantes are the "comrades" — an even more loosely structured group of mostly young, more militant township residents who have closer links with the ANC and UDF. Their activities are often organised in open defiance of the black establishment and, as township councils have collapsed, they have stepped in to provide an alternative power structure through the setting up of street and area committees responsible for organising everything from rent collection to rubbish disposal. They also deal with what they see as the crimes of alleged informers and collaborators, meting out summary punishments as severe as those handed out by the vigilantes. The blazing "necklace" has become a hallmark of the comrades' treatment of alleged informers.

The tactic of divide and rule was consciously adopted by the white ruling class in the hope that a stable, conservative, black "middle class" would emerge in the townships to administer apartheid on their behalf and to deal with more militant elements. The present activities of the township vigilantes are still, in some senses, advantageous to the ruling class, since they justify the maintenance of the security forces in the townships and violent factionalism among blacks is also used as a justification for the continuation of apartheid itself. South Africa, it is argued, is too fragmented for a unitary, democratic system to be workable. Ultimately. however, the security forces and the government can't win — they have applied the divide-and-rule strategy for what it is worth and now it is beginning to work against them. They created the divisions within the townships; now that they are becoming violent and the townships become increasingly ungovernable they use more repressive tactics to control the situation; more repression only serves to add to grievances.

But if political tactics are failing Botha's government, so too is the ideology of apartheid turning on its own. For Botha's feeble attempts at cosmetic change, which have done nothing to satisfy the blacks, are viewed with alarm and a sense of betrayal by some Afrikaners. The ideology of white supremacy was used to divide South Africa's working class. That ideology ensured that white workers were relatively affluent, had a protected position in the labour market and constituted an "aristocracy of labour". Many accepted this ideology believing that their privileged position meant that they had no interests in common with black workers. But the apartheid ideology, now recognised by significant sections of the capitalist class as an anachronism, a fetter on the expansion of wealth production, created a group of white workers who not only felt no common class interest with black workers, but who hardly even regarded them as human. Botha's attempts at reform have, therefore, bolstered the fortunes of a number of even more extreme right-wing groups, while his own National Party is itself breaking up into factions.

There are two main parties on the far right: the Conservative Party, founded after the last general election in 1981, which has 17 seats in the South African legislature, and the Herstigte Nasionale Party (HNP) which has one. But this lack of seats disguises the level of support in certain areas of the country for extra parliamentary, neo-Nazi groups such as the Afrikaner Volkswag (the people s guard) headed by Carel Broshoff. former leader of the Broederbond — a secret society dedicated to Afrikaner supremacy, and the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) the Afrikaner Resistance Movement — led by Eugene Terre' Blanche. It was this group which was responsible for the breaking up of a National Party meeting in Pietersburg recently. The AWB has a swastika-like emblem and openly supports racist violence Terre' Blanche encourages his members to join the security forces and he wants an armed vigilante group to protect whites. Ultimately he seeks the re-establishment of the old Boer republics of Transvaal and the Orange Free State as a white "homeland".

Many business people, professionals and political liberals want apartheid to go. They want to replace the old racist ideology which is now causing so many problems but without basically changing the distribution of political power, hence the present attempts to introduce power-sharing without having to forfeit overall political control. Some liberals have given up and left South Africa, others, especially the young, have attended meetings supporting black political rights. Some young whites have refused to serve in South Africa's conscript army and risk six years' imprisonment. Some whites have even joined the ANC's military wing.

Clearly it is no longer possible to see the situation in South Africa simply in terms of a conflict between black and white. Class conflict, always present but to some extent disguised by the racial division, is becoming more obvious as workers and trade unionists exploit the weak position of South Africa's ruling class to press home demands for changes in working conditions and levels of pay. Within the capitalist class itself conflict is apparent between industrialists who need the more flexible labour force that an end to apartheid can provide, and the old. mainly Afrikaner, land owning class who fear the cost of such a change for the semi-feudal system by which they run their farms. These divisions are real, representing a true opposition of interests. Those created by the ideology of apartheid are not. They are illusory, representing artificial distinctions based on the ambiguous concept of racial difference, or mistaken beliefs about where your true interest lies.

Apartheid must collapse. The tactic of divide and rule has divided not only blacks but also whites and the white ruling class may well find that the absence of a single black political movement with whom it can do business is a greater threat to its existence than they had imagined. To head off black discontent the government has tried to win over blacks through a process of gradual reform to remove "petty apartheid". It has not only failed but in so doing it has now outraged its own supporters who believed the racist ideology of white supremacy. At the same time those reforms are seen by blacks as cracks in the facade of white rule, adding impetus to the pressure for change.

The white ruling class is also under pressure from capitalists who are threatening to withdraw investments from South Africa. Firstly because of the combined effects of the fall in value of assets and dividends caused by the collapse of the rand; secondly negative publicity because of their South African involvement from anti-apartheid organisations. which it is feared will affect their sales. The capitalist class as a whole is not concerned about the morality of apartheid, how humane or democratic the system is, but rather whether it is stable and can provide the environment necessary for the production of profit.

The extent to which Botha is losing his political grip is evident in the raid launched by South Africa on alleged ANC bases in Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia. No doubt the raid was intended to reassure the whites at home that the regime was not going soft on blacks, despite the reforms. And no doubt too Botha thought that since America had used a similar justification (rooting out terrorists) for the attack on Libya and got away with it there would not be international outrage if he conducted a similar exercise. But America is clearly recognising which way the wind is currently blowing in South Africa (some US politicians have already started calling ANC "terrorists" "freedom-fighters") and expressed hypocritical moral outrage at South Africa's attack, as did Britain. Botha clearly has few political friends either at home or abroad. He is in a classic "no win" situation as a result of the contradictions of an archaic political and social system in a modern capitalist state. A move in any direction is likely to bring the whole citadel of apartheid down around his ears. The more interesting question that we should now consider is what is likely to replace it?

Janie Percy-Smith

Apartheid lives (1983)

From the December 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

The term “apartheid” was not coined when the National Party, after it came to power in 1948, presented its policies in the form of a comprehensive doctrine. As that wily old opportunist. General Smuts, declared during the 1948 General Election: “Room must be found for them (Non-Whites) on the principle of apartheid. It is neither a new word nor a new thing" (South Africa: An Historical Introduction, F. Troup, 1972, p.285).

Indeed, much of what constitutes the bloated corpus of apartheid legislation today can be traced back to the early part of this century after the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910. For instance, the present-day allocation on paper of 13 per cent of the land to the African majority is based on the 1936 Native Land and Trust Act. This, in turn, built on the crucially important 1913 Native Land Act prohibiting Africans from purchasing land outside the reserves designated for them as part of the strategy to force them into the migrant labour system on which the mines depended — and still depend. Then there are the stringent conditions under which Africans today are allowed to reside in the urban areas of so-called “White” South Africa, conditions laid down in the Urban Areas Act first promulgated in 1923 and amended since. (The 1922 Stallard Commission recommended that “Natives should only be allowed to enter the urban areas to minister to the needs of the white man and should depart therefrom when he ceases so to minister." This is strikingly similar to the view expressed by M. C. Botha, later Minister of Manpower Utilisation, in 1976, that “The basis on which the Bantu is present in the white areas is to sell their labour here and for nothing else".) Such examples, and there are many more, illustrate the historical continuity of Nationalist rule and what one author has described as the "Age of the Generals" preceding it, presided over by the bitter old rivals. Smuts and Hertzog.

Nevertheless, 1948 was a significant watershed in the history of South Africa. The somewhat haphazard racist legislation inherited by the Nationalists was systematically reworked and extended into the rigid and comprehensive structure with which the term “apartheid" is commonly associated. More recently, however, some shifts in policy have occurred which have been interpreted (as, indeed, the "reformist" Botha government would wish to have them interpreted) as suggesting a somewhat more flexible, pragmatic approach on the part of government to apartheid.

But “neo-apartheid" (as some have called it) has clearly disturbed a growing proportion of the all-white electorate. Several developments have fuelled this white reaction. There is the much talked about but rather limited relaxation of "petty apartheid" (which applies to the mixing of races in public places like hotels, restaurants, beaches and parks). There is, too, the erosion of the traditional colour bar restricting skilled work mainly to whites. While most of the legislation that entrenched this colour bar has been scrapped (due to the tremendous shortage of skilled labour that developed with the growth in manufacturing industry after the Second World War) traditional practices are sometimes maintained by closed shop and apprentice agreements with white unions. Finally, there is the constitutional proposal to co-opt the Coloureds (mixed race) and Asians into an expanded (but segregated) electorate which would vote for representatives for a three chamber parliament in which the white chamber would be dominant. The African majority would remain totally excluded on the grounds that they must seek their political emancipation in the ten "ethnic” homelands, four of which have already achieved "independence".

In particular, this proposed change to the constitution has been the subject of intense political debate over the past few years (and a national referendum held last month). In 1982 it precipitated the formation of the ultra-right Conservative Party, led by Dr Andries Treurnicht, as a result of a split within the National Party. Together with the smaller but similarly inclined Herstigte National Party — which likewise broke away from the NP in 1969 — the Conservatives have recently been gaining ground. This will obviously influence how far the government is likely to proceed down the road of "neo-apartheid" as it anxiously surveys its (once massive) support draining away. There is, after all, the precedent of the National Party itself to make the government wary of a political opponent eager to assert its claim to be the true heir to Afrikaner nationalism. In 1934 the “Purified Nationalists" under Malan split from the old Nationalist Party led by Hertzog on account of the latter's fusion with Smuts’ South African Party to form a huge party of the “centre” — the United Party. Yet it took just 14 years for the comparatively small and reorganised National Party to become, with the aid of the sinister Afrikaner Broederbond, the government of South Africa in 1948.

Thus the so called monolith of Afrikaner nationalism is, once again, visibly cracking under the strain of conflicting views. At issue is not whether the apartheid system ought to continue but the form it should take in the circumstances prevailing today. According to the Johannesburg Financial Mail, the difference between Botha and Treurnicht is that “The first is seeking an accommodation with certain blacks — but only on white terms; the second is contemptuous of such an accommodation — it is seen as weak” (Apartheid: The Facts, p.51).

This attempt on the part of the Botha government to accommodate a black elite is a key component of what it has called its “total strategy”. This strategy — a hint of the close links that have been forged under Botha between the military top brass and their political counterparts — is based on the realisation that it will take more than the military might of the state to counter the threats to the apartheid regime. In the words of the 1977 White Paper on Defence and Armaments Production, "The resolution of a conflict in the times in which we live demands inter-dependent and co-ordinated action in all fields — military, psychological, political, sociological." (Apartheid: The Facts p.68). What prompted this new approach was, partly, the events in Mozambique, Angola and Zimbabwe which swept away the cordon sanitaire of Portuguese colonialism and Ian Smith's Rhodesia, making South Africa more vulnerable to guerrilla insurgency; partly, the rising resistance to apartheid within South Africa itself which culminated in the riots on the streets of Soweto in 1976; and partly the growing international pressure against apartheid during the seventies.

It is against this background, therefore, that the Government has sought to woo the urbanised black elite by modifying certain aspects of apartheid. The aim of this, according to Patrick Laurence (Guardian 22 November 1978) is to build "a buffer between the white elite and the relatively impoverished black masses, and thereby transfer a racial struggle between white and black into an ideological one between capitalism and marxism". For the majority of blacks, however, there has been little change and indeed in some respects there has been a deterioration. The number of arrests for passbook violations in 1982, for example, exceeded 200,000 — a 90 per cent increase since 1981. For all the talk of reform, the traditional pattern of apartheid — its draconian pass laws and the deportation of "superfluous" people to the desperate poverty of the Homelands — is still remarkably resilient.

With hindsight it is easy to see how wildly over-optimistic was Lord Milner's observation in the last century that “Two wholly antagonistic systems, a medieval race oligarchy and a modern industrial state" could not exist permanently side by side. The emergence of capitalism in South Africa did not, in some mechanistic fashion, erode the racist outlook of a hitherto pastoral Boer community. On the contrary, the latter was successfully and insidiously grafted onto this emerging capitalism — above all in the mining industry whose white union is still today a bastion of staunch conservatism and racist bigotry.

On the other hand, it does not follow at all that apartheid and capitalism are inextricably intertwined and that the struggle against apartheid is thus intrinsically "anti-capitalist". Yet clearly it would suit the government very well if this was widely accepted. It could then better mobilise the support of the comparatively privileged section of the black population (as Laurence suggests) against the supposed “marxist" threat to the South African "way of life”. It could also more easily tar its liberal critics with the "communist" brush as it has long tried to do.

But the plain fact is that the overwhelming majority of apartheid’s opponents are not opposed to capitalism as such. While some elements within the black nationalist camp (in particular within the banned African National Congress) adopt the terminology of socialist revolution, their goal is the discredited leninist one of state capitalism. Yet even this misrepresentation of the socialist objective seems to attract little support: a recent report of the Buthelezi Commission estimated that a resounding majority of more than five to one blacks preferred private enterprise to state ownership (New Society, 13 May 1982). The paradoxically strong support the "socialistic” ANC enjoys, particularly amongst urban blacks, is not because of any leanings it may have towards “socialism” but rather the result of its militant opposition to apartheid.

The workers of South Africa must look beneath the skin deep changes that apartheid’s demise can at best offer. It is towards their own emancipation as a class that they must turn their eyes. The impressive growth of independent non-racial trade unionism since the early seventies is a tribute to the courage of many thousands of black and white workers but also a hopeful indication of what can be done even in a climate as repressive as South Africa’s.

Robin Cox

Botha's last stand? (1987)

From the February 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

The last few months have seen South Africa take several steps nearer to becoming a police state. Under the state of emergency the director-general of the Department of Education and Training has issued new instructions banning the display of any slogans on T-shirts, school bags and so on that express opposition to the apartheid regime. In addition the director-general can ban any course, class or syllabus that is not approved of by the Education Act or is. in other words, considered subversive. These new powers supplement other decrees issued under the state of emergency which compel pupils to enrol in school.

At the same time there have been new, draconian restrictions placed on the media: nothing can be published about militant, black organisations, consumer boycotts, strikes, campaigns of civil disobedience or detentions of political prisoners. Neither are newspapers allowed to print white spaces to indicate that material has been removed to meet the requirements of state censorship. In a feeble attempt to justify the new measures President Botha claimed that the media was promoting the cause of "radicals", especially the African National Congress, rather than that of the "moderates". In an advertisement published in December last year he said:

There can . . . be no doubt that there are individuals within the established media and organs of the alternative media who strongly believe that the media should be overtly and covertly used to promote the objectives of the radical revolution.

Meanwhile the coercion by the security forces continues: since the beginning of the state of emergency it is estimated that 22,000 people have been detained without trial or charge and it is thought that 8,200 of these detainees have been children under the age of 18. 4,000 of whom are still in prison. Those who have been released tell of appalling torture and brutality by their guards and their statements are backed up by a growing dossier of medical evidence from doctors who have examined the children on their release. The Detainees Parents Support Group, an independent monitoring group which has collected the statistics, claim that:

The security forces are attempting to instill fear of involvement among the children . . . the picture that emerges is one of seemingly random detentions.

The overtly coercive tactics of mass detentions, new restrictions on the media and education are part of an increasingly desperate attempt by the South African government to retain control in the face of not only unrest among blacks in the townships but also of what can only be described as a situation of dual power.

In the townships over the past two years an alternative structure of community action groups, student associations, tenants' groups and street committees have grown up. At the same time the state-sponsored community councils have seen their authority reduced and their members labelled as collaborators. The community councils, elected in polls that were heavily boycotted, have from the start lacked legitimacy in the eyes of township residents because of their close association with apartheid. Over the last two years many councillors have resigned and others have been brutally punished for their "collaboration". Increasingly militant black community organisations have taken over the administration of their own communities. Education has been a particular focus for discontent, leading to the schools' boycott of 1985 and 1986 and the closing of some schools by the Education Department as a result. But while formal education has virtually ceased in many areas, an alternative system of "people's education" has developed with the pupils themselves determining its content and direction. It is fear of this self-education that has led to the new emergency decrees forcing children to return to the kind of schooling that the state deems acceptable.

The restrictions on the media also represent an important part of the attempt by the state to regain control in the townships since they mean that local organisations are no longer able to communicate with people through local newspapers and it has become more difficult to organise or publicise campaigns.

But more sinister perhaps is the way in which the state has established a covert system of local security councils which have a dual function of, on the one hand, undermining militant black groups and on the other, trying to restore legitimacy to township groups acceptable to the government. The National Security Management System (NSMS) was established seven years ago but over the last two years it was established a network of over 500 regional and local Joint Management Committees (JMCs) throughout the country. Their function is to undermine the black opposition by exploiting factional rivalries between different groups and by running propaganda campaigns designed to discredit the "alternative" township committees. By gathering intelligence locally which is relayed back to the NSMS they also enable the police and security forces to arrest local activists and political leaders. At the same time JMCs are trying to restore legitimate authority to the state-sponsored community councils by dealing with some of the grievances of township residents such as poor housing. Clearly there is a recognition that heavy-handed repressive tactics are costly and, in the long run, less effective than more subtle means of undermining opposition.

At the same time as the white ruling class in South Africa pursues this twin track strategy towards the blacks, it is also trying to restore its image in the eyes of its traditional Afrikaner supporters. In the month before the ANC celebrated its 75th anniversary. Botha stated that he would root out ANC members both within South Africa itself and also in the surrounding countries. To show he meant business he launched a series of raids into neighbouring Swaziland. With the possibility of an early election being called this year he is likely to make a patriotic appeal to whites in South Africa to close ranks against what is portrayed as the threat of Russian-backed black insurgents inside South Africa. But as multi-national after multi-national pulls out of the country because of the threat to their profitability posed by continuing instability and the failure of the Botha regime to provide a framework in which capitalist enterprise can flourish, white workers in South Africa are likely to start asking themselves questions, if not about the morality of apartheid then surely about a system that can no longer guarantee their jobs and privileged standard of living.

Janie Percy-Smith