African Studies Institute - Seminar Papers
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/7319
For information on accessing African Studies Institute - Seminar Papers collection content please contact Peter Duncan via email :
peter.duncan@wits.ac.za
Browse
5 results
Search Results
Item A long way to walk: Bus Boycotts in Alexandra, 1940-1945(1979-04) Stadler, Alfred WilliamBus boycotts assumed central significance in the political struggles in urban areas during the forties and fifties. The Alexandra boycott of 1957, which evoked sympathy boycotts across the country, even in areas in which bus fares had not been increased, reached the proportions of a major confrontation between the state on the one hand and African communities and political organisations on the other.Item The conditions for democracy in a future South Africa(1989-10-16) Stadler, Alfred WilliamIt is not inconceivable that the formal institutions of democracy, with universal adult suffrage in a unitary state at the centre, will be introduced in South Africa in the foreseeable future. It is also not beyond the bounds of probability that these formal institutions will be overtaken by a coup d'etat, or a one-party dictatorship which will subordinate or suppress opposition and dissent. This paper is concerned to investigate the most propitious conditions for a stable future democracy in South Africa. Like other similar undertakings, the paper is primarily based on comparative studies rather than on South African political, economic or social material. The main conditions which will be investigated are social, or socio-economic; political; and institutional. The political conditions will be discussed in two intimately related contexts: the one focused on policy, and the other on political power. But it will also become clear that it disputes the assumption made in the earlier literature that it is possible neatly to separate political conditions from social ones, or to assume that the chains of causality can be arranged in a linear fashion. The paper hopefully contributes to political debates going on in this country. It therefore has a political purpose. It also makes the assumption that academic debate may contribute meaningfully to desirable political ends. However, the paper does not, except in a superficial and piecemeal way, consider the extent to which South African conditions provide evidence of emergent properties conducive to democratic stability, or otherwise.Item Class in white South Africa(1976-07) Stadler, Alfred WilliamThis paper sketches the broad lines of class structure in the white community in South Africa. Aside from the efforts of a small group of scholars, this issue has not received the attention it deserves in recent years. Indeed there is an implicit assumption that because there are no class parties, class is a negligible factor in white politics. While a general discussion of the literature is beyond the scope of this paper, the major assumptions which are embedded in recent analyses by liberal and conservative historians and sociologists might be summarised briefly as follows: Whites are members of a broadly egalitarian caste divided politically along language and cultural lines within a system of racial stratification. Political power reflects cultural groupings rather than class formations. Political elites are the representatives of cultural formations rather than dominant class interests. Class and community constitute alternative and exclusive bases for political action. Racial prejudice is seen as the determinant force in the present configuration of power.Item Birds in the cornfield: Squatter movements in Johannesburg, 1944-1947(1978-04) Stadler, Alfred WilliamThe Government is beaten, because even the Government of England could not stop the people from squatting. The Government was like a man who has a cornfield which is invaded by birds. He chases the birds from one part of the field and they alight in another part of the field We squatters are the birds'. The Government sends its policemen to chase us away and we move off and occupy another spot. We shall see whether it is the farmer or the birds who get tired first (1). Thus spoke Oriel Monongoaha, one of the leaders of the Pimville squatters. The tenor and tone of his words suggests that while the squatter movements were in the first instance a protest by blacks in Johannesburg against the serious shortage of housing which developed during a period of rapid urbanisation, they assumed the proportions of open rebellion, mounted on a scale unprecedented in any urban area in South Africa. The squatter movements were remarkable, not only for the numbers involved(a), their duration, and their successes, but above all because their structure and organisation flowed out of an instinctual understanding of the contradictions developing in the South African political economy.Item Apartheid as ideology(1972-05) Stadler, Alfred WilliamWriters on South African race policy frequently distinguish between the ‘administrative-repressive’ structure and the ‘utopian’ or 'declamatory' aspects of apartheid, between the ongoing processes of racial discrimination and the ideal of total territorial separation between the races. (2) Van Den Berghe argues that the contradictions between the "idealist" and "realist" strains in apartheid may be resolved, "insofar as each operate at a different level. The answer lies in the old dilemma of means versus ends that is inherent in the exercise of power." This kind of argument conceals the problematic nature of apartheid. The fact that politicians' actions frequently diverge from their expressed intentions is not in itself very interesting. It is the construction which political actors place upon the relationship between means and ends which reveals the nature of ideological assumptions. In South Africa, the consciousness of a dichotomy between the ongoing activities of the political order and the professed objectives of the regime reveals the contradictions of the South African situation.