African Studies Institute - Seminar Papers

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4

"Because your yard is too big": Squatter struggles, the local state and dual power in Uitgenhage, 1985-1986
(1988-03-14) Swilling, Mark
By focussing largely on the struggle Langa's squatters waged against forced removal, this chapter will attempt to analyse the complex interactions between local township administrators, the white establishment, employers, community organisations and trade unions. To understand this complexity, the romantic conception of unstratified communities united against a monolithinc state needs to be jettisoned. Instead, the internal workings of both the social movements and state apparatuses must be studied. This cannot be achieved, however, without taking into account the impact social movements have on the state and how the actions of state officials affect the strategies of social movements. Furthermore, this relationship does not exist outside the influence employer interests exert on the local state and the way this influence is mediated by trade union pressure. As this chapter will show, once the object of study is extended in this way, social processes come to light that call into question two teleologies. The first is the optimistic view that social movements are only important to the extent that they contribute to the build-up of a national movement that will, at some moment in the future, detonate the collapse of the state. The second is the pessimistic view that social movements only win those concessions that structural conditions allow ruling class interests to concede (1). In both cases, the impact of local movements and how they determine the terms of social organisation is ignored. For the former, the structure of society will only be transformed when the moment of revolution arrives and not before. As far as the latter is concerned, any changes that do take place, occur on terms determined almost entirely by the ruling class.
Political organisation and community protest: The African National Congress in the Rand Townships, 1955-1957
(1978-03) Lodge, Tom
This paper will examine three instances of African protest: the attempts to resist the removals in the Johannesburg western areas, the opposition to Bantu Education and the Alexandra bus boycott of 1957. It was hoped that analyses of these movements would throw some light on the relationship of organised nationalist opposition to the less formal resistance that sprung from economic pressures rather than clearly perceived political aspirations. To have examined in detail protest in which the ANC was not obviously involved, might have provided: a more useful focus but unfortunately information on the kind of ‘informal’ protest described below is difficult to obtain from the more obvious sources which for reasons of time the research for this paper had to be limited. However an examination of the three campaigns does provide some insight into the relationship between the ANC and local interests and the extent to which it succeeded in channeling and expressing popular grievances. This may help to correct distortions which have resulted from a tendency to analyze African political opposition purely from the perspective of the nationalist movement, considering it in isolation from the general socio-economic context of black politics. The history of the ANC in the 1950s heeds to be written from a local level: how did branches operate, how were they viewed in the local community, what particular interests did they represent, was there anything socially distinct about their membership, how were the local communities structured?
The Torch Commando & the politics of white opposition: South Africa 1951-1953
(1976-03) Fridjhon, Michael
The Torch Commando is customarily regarded as a war veterans movement which emerged spontaneously as a response to the proposed violation of the Constitution by the Nationalist Government through the removal of the Coloureds from the Common Roll without the requisite two thirds majority. In terms of this view, the emotional and volatile nature of the movement's origins are both its strength and its weakness. The Torch is regarded as an ephemeral feature on the South African political landscape. The explanation of its meteoric rise and fall needs to be consistent for itself only, and only bears relation to the rest of the white political structure inasmuch as it can be used to elucidate problems about the official opposition groups.
The resistance to the extension of passes to African women: 1954-1960
(1979-09) De Villiers, Richard
At the annual conference of the African National Congress (ANC) in January 1959, a National Anti-Pass Planning Council was appointed, and the year 1959 declared "Anti-Pass Year". From the inception of the ANC, to its banning in 1960, passes for Africans is a continuous theme of ANC protest activity. Albert Luthuli writes of the early years of the ANC: things were beginning to move. In the Free State in 1913 there were widespread anti-pass demonstrations and numerous arrests. In 1919 Congress organised an anti-pass campaign - in Johannesburg alone there were 700 arrests. But in 1959 passes have become the major focus of ANC opposition to Apartheid. It was this decision; to centre protest against Apartheid specifically around the issue of passes, which finally culminated in the shootings at Sharpeville in March 1960 and launched the crises of the early 1960's for the South African State. This paper seeks to explain why the ANC adopted the Natives Abolition of Pases Act of 1952 as its major thrust of protest activity in 1959. It examines the Anti-Pass Campaign led by the Federation of South African Women (F.S.A.W.) prior to the adoption by the ANC of an anti-pass campaign. Most previous efforts to explain the events leading up to the Sharpeville crisis have not looked at the campaign of the F.S.A.W., nor the general resistance to passes by African women, which began in 1955. The F.S.A.W.'s campaign is generally ignored as a factor influencing the ANC decision, and yet it is probably more significant than any other.

African Studies Institute - Seminar Papers

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