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The construction of apartheid, 1948-1961
(1988-08) Posel, Deborah
What was distinctive about Apartheid in the 1950s,as compared with the 1960s? How was it constructed, and how did it change? Much of the academic and journalistic literature on Apartheid pre-'reform' depicts it as the product of a single, long-term 'grand plan', pursued systematically and unfalteringly by the National Party (NP) since its accession to power in 1948. Such views are challenged in this paper, which argues that although the Apartheid state has certainly been characterised by a singular degree of co-ordination, planning and coercion, the construction of Apartheid has not been a wholly linear, systematic or monolithic project. The state's uncertainties, conflicts, weaknesses, changes and failures, although far less visible than its cohesiveness and triumphs, have also made their mark on the construction of Apartheid. Moreover, some (but obviously not all) of the premises and objectives of Apartheid changed in fundamental ways at the onset of the 1960s. (The presentation of these arguments is very brief and schematic, being a summary of large chunks of my doctoral thesis.)
Apartheid and the decline of the civilisation idea: an essay on Nadine Gordimer's July's people and J.M. Coetzee's Waiting for the barbarians
(1983-06) Rich, Paul
White settler political ideology in South Africa has traditionally seen itself as the embodiment of some form of "civilisation" against the threatened "barbarism" of African majority rule. The term has a significance both in its Victorian imperial roots and its facility for acting as a kind of common ideological denominator binding the political discourse of both Afrikaner and English settlers into a common defence of "white civilisation". Moreover, it reflects the essentially urban nature of white South African society and thus reinforces the apartheid notion of territorial separation between the white urban race in the city areas and the rural abodes of the African majority in the ("precivilised") tribal "Homelands", though limited economic development in certain sections of these rural slums has brought urban aspects even to this originally pastoral vision. The "civilisation" idea, however extends in some respects beyond the simple assertion of white racial ideology in South Africa politics, for it has structured a fair degree of liberal political discourse in the post-war years as well. It was the hope of South African liberals in the churches, the Institute of Race Relations and the Liberal Party itself between 1953 and 1968 that a specifically non-racial "civilisation" could be created in South Africa on the basis of western political and cultural values. This view was influenced both by the perceptions of external views of South Africa politics in the years after 1948 and the equation of the Nationalists' policy of apartheid with many aspects of the Nazi "barbarism" which had been defeated in the second world war. "The rest of the world well understand", wrote the historian Arthur Keppel Jones in a pamphlet What is Destroying Civilisation in South Africa?, "as too few South Africans do, that civilisation is not defined by the colour bar" Unless, however, a shift in policy occurred to admit "non whites" into this "civilisation" then the conclusion emerged that "the verdict of history on the evanescent European civilisation in Southern Africa would be that it was a flame that flickered for only a few generations, and then became a mere historical interlude between two Dark Ages". There was thus an underlying cultural pessimism at the core of the liberal view of protecting the values of a non-racial "civilisation" in the South African context that has deepened in more recent years into one of despair. This cultural Angst has been reflected in two important recent novels by white South African writers that have pinpointed how far liberal or radical white intellectuals in this society have become cut off from the main tenets of western liberal thinking. The burden of this paper is to discuss the cultural and political significance of these two works, Nadine Gordimer's July's People (1981) and J. M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians (1980) in the context of the historical meaning of the western notion of "civilisation" and the decline of this idea in the era of apartheid ideology in modern South Africa. As the first section of this paper will show, the western "civilisation" idea has been closely linked to an historical and teleological notion of progress allied to imperial expansion since the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. While in many respects the apartheid conception of racial separation was the fulfillment of many of these precepts, especially in so far as it was allied to the continuation and entrenchment of capitalist economic expansion in Southern Africa, it has been accompanied by a growing loss of faith by liberal intellectuals in the continued progress and extension of western humanistic values. The second section of this paper will thus analyse this clutural Angst among South African liberals before discussing the significance of the two recent works of Gordimer and Coetzee. Novels in the South African context probably have a greater political and ideological significance than most of those written in the metropolitan societies of Western Europe and North America, for the distinction between artistic imagination and political activity is so much thinner.4 To the degree, therefore, that many modern novels can be seen as an extension of more common political and ideological discourse, even if it be that of some form of liberal intellectual salon culture, then they throw some light on the ideological climate of the society concerned. The main test of this, though, must be historical and the centreal thrust of this paper will be to see modern novel writing in South Africa in terms of a set of ideas about both progress and "civilisation" that have become sharply undermined in South Africa's mounting political and ideological crisis of legitimacy.
Interpretations of underdevelopment, legitimations of the racial order: The Holloway and Tomlinson commissions of inquiry
(1986-08-11) Pretorius, Louwrens
Commissions of inquiry are, as Merton (1975) pointed out, both users and producers of sociological knowledge. Because commissions deal with political issues, their reports reveal some of the ways in which such knowledge is used for political purposes. In other words, their reports provide excellent material for the analysis of ideology. The concept "ideology" refers to more or less coherent sets of ideas, or modes of discourse, which serve "to sustain relations of domination" (Thompson 1984). Ideology operates in many ways. Of these, legitimation is probably the one which is most often implied when the concept is used. Another is the dissimulation of the interests which are served by the state, or some other political formation, and by the ideology itself. In this paper I shall attempt to show how (quasi-) scientifically excogitated ideas were used, by the two commissions identified in the title, to legitimate the racial order in South Africa. The main thrust of the argument is quite simple: Socio-cultural interpretations of social "problems" were used to justify a political order which is structured along racial lines, and to (at least) obscure the interests which benefit from racially based domination. This paper is not presented here because I pretend to any novel insights into the content of the "ruling ideology". We are all familiar with the central components of segregationist and apartheid ideology. I think, however, that the intensive analysis of ways in which ostensibly "scientific commissions" employ interpretations of social problems as "legitimation theories", is a relatively new theme on the agendas of South African social scientists. Recent publications focus on current "adaptations" in legitimating discourse (e.g. Buckland 1982, Stadler 1984). This paper will, I hope, at least contribute some historical perspective towards the study of current forms of "technisist" legitimating discourse(s). My own project entails studying the aetiology of the ruling ideology as it is reflected in commission reports. One component of the project is an attempt to understand the "argumentative structure of (ideological) discourse" (Thompson 1984, 136). It will become obvious, however, that my "method" does not have much in common with various forms of methodologically self-conscious discourse (and hermeneutical) analysis. In this regard I can only say that I try to understand the nature of the "legitimating theories" by looking at the relationships between the various components of the reports of different commissions which dealt with particular perennial issues in South African politics; and by reading the reports with reference to the historical contexts in which the commissions operated. (I have not yet given attention to the relationship between commission reports and the evidence and other types of information on which they are based).
Hendrik Albertus and his ex-slave Mey: A drama in three acts
(1989-08) Mason, John
In the early spring of 1832, Mey, a slave belonging to Hendrik Albertus van Niekerk, initiated a series of events that, in quick succession, saw him beaten by his master's son, Hendrik, Jr., whipped again by his master's own hand, and unconditionally freed by old Hendrik barely ten days later. It is a remarkable story, probably without parallel in the history of the Cape Colony, and worth telling if only for that reason. But the story also deserves the historian's attention because in determining why events passed as they did, some light can be shed on previously obscure areas of South African history.
Black consciousness on trial: The BPC/SASO trial, 1974-1976
(1990-08) Lobban, Michael
On 25 September 1974, the South African Students' Organisation and the Black People's Convention held two rallies to celebrate independence in Mozambique. Within two weeks, 29 black consciousness leaders were in detention, as the state prepared for a major trial of the black consciousness movement which would see nine leaders of BFC and SASO facing conspiracy charges under the terrorism act. The state sought to put on trial the actions and ideas of the movement since its foundation, in order to portray it as a revolutionary movement led by self-conscious conspirators. In the state’s view, the black consciousness movement sought to go one stage further than the ANC or PAC had. If they had failed, it was because they had reverted to guerrilla movements without preparing the people for mass revolution: it was this that black consciousness would build. The state thus charged the accused with a conspiracy to bring about revolutionary change and/or the promotion of racial hostility. A second count charged seven of them with organizing the rallies with intent to promote racial hostility. These two counts were mutually reinforcing: the rallies were the confrontational fruition of the conspiracy; the conspiracy explained what the rallies were all about. The conspiracy was to be found primarily in the rhetoric of the organisations, its publications calling on even children to "talk, eat, live, cry and play the struggle for liberation," its language talking of ‘infiltration’. The conspiracy was to be inferred from the "cumulative effects" of the actions and words of the groups, seen "in conjunction with the nature and activities of the organisations."
The origins of multiracialism
(1990-4-30) Everatt, David
Resistance politics in the 1950s was dominated by the Congress Alliance, made up of the African National Congress [ANC], the South African Indian Congress [SAIC], the Coloured People’s Congress [CPC] and the white South African Congress of Democrats [SACOD]. The Alliance mobilized people of all races against apartheid in a manner previously unseen in South African history. The internal politics of the resistance movement, however, was dominated by wide-ranging and bitter disputes over the form that racial co-operation should take. That dispute centred on the multiracial nature of the Congress Alliance - that is, an alliance of separate Congresses comprising members of a single ethnic group, coordinated at regional and national levels.
A feeling of prejudice: Orpheus M. McAdoo and the Virginia Jubilee Singers in South Africa, 1890 - 1898
(1986-08-25) Erlmann, Veit
Race, civilisation and culture: The elaboration of segregationist discourse in the inter-war years
(1986-03-03) Dubow, Saul
We can run, but we can't hide: The need for psychological explanation in social history
(2000-04-17) Dagut, Simon
There have been many occasions in my experience when the explanatory techniques normally used by social historians have seemed inadequate to deal with some particular process or event. No doubt this happens to every historian, but I sometimes suspect that the social world of British colonialism in nineteenth century South Africa - my particular interest - provides these moments more often than some other areas. This feeling is, no doubt, largely the result of not knowing as much about the peculiarities of other places and times, but I do think it is at least arguable that colonial encounters created more extraordinarily odd situations than many other social environments. In past work, have taken two approaches to these kinds of explanatory challenges. In the case of really bizarre material, I have simply avoided discussing it in writing and have rationalised my omissions on the grounds that this sort of thing is too atypical to be helpful in building up a broad general picture of British settlers' attitudes and experiences. In the case of more frequently occurring oddities, I have attempted to argue that they were the result of the construction of settlers' attitudes by the prevalent discourses concerning class identity and colonialism, which combined to create so great a social distance between settlers and African people that what would otherwise have seemed socially impossible became everyday and natural. Although I do, in general, stand by this analysis, I have increasingly come to feel that it needs to be supplemented. Firstly, really peculiar circumstances deserve some time in the historical spotlight by way of an adjunct to those which an historian has decided were 'normal'. Extreme cases can be very useful in revealing the limits of the normal. Secondly, explaining even the 'normal' seems to me to require the use of psychological terms and techniques, however much historians may wish that this weren't the case.
Domestic racial interaction in later nineteenth century
(1996-02-26) Dagut, Simon
This paper is primarily concerned with the ways in which white men and women - mainly the latter - interacted with their African, coloured and Indian domestic servants in the second half of the nineteenth century. Its second concern is to argue that the study of this (and related) topics is of considerable, importance in the causation of the oppressive forms which South African states and social orders have taken. The topic of this paper is situated at the intersection of two areas which have been largely neglected in South African historiography. While the attitudes and experiences of "ordinary" African people in nineteenth and twentieth century South Africa have received considerable (and distinguished) attention in the last twenty years, comparatively little "history from below" has been written about whites, whether "Boer" or "Briton." Equally, while nineteenth century European, American and British empire domestic service has been fairly extensively examined, this is a relatively neglected area of South African historiography.

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