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South Africa's common society
(1991-02) Simons, Jack
I circulated a draft paper in February 1989 with the title "South Africa's Civil War: Revolution and Counter-Revolution". It had two parts, one called "Resistance and Repression", the other "South Africa's Common Society". Together they made out a case for identifying the struggle as a civil war arising out of a revolutionary situation. The terms are complementary, not contradictory. A civil war by definition is an armed conflict between combatants who are citizens of the same state, belong to the same society, and take up arms in a struggle for political power. The most bitter and ruinous war of the last century was the civil war fought in the United States in 1861/2 between the slave-owning Confederacy and the Union of free labour states. (2) A South African example of an imperial war was Britain's war of 1899-1902 against the Boer republics, fought by an aggressive power to establish control over the whole of Southern Africa in keeping with the ambition of Cecil John Rhodes (1852-1902) to paint the map red from Cape to Cairo.
Ideology in organized Indian politics, 1880-1948
(1983-03-28) Tayal, Maureen
This paper is an attempt to place in perspective the ideologies which have helped shape South African Indian politics. The history of organized Indian politics from the 1880s to the 1940s is mainly the history of trader politics - an almost unbroken line of accommodation to the demands of the ruling white minority; or, at most, selective reformism. This line has twice been breached though. Between 1907 and 1913, and again in the 1940s, a radical leadership emerged in the Transvaal and Natal which attempted to transform Indian politics. The process of transformation began at the level of ideology. Thus the two periods of radicalism are useful focal points: they demand an examination of not only the new ideologies, but also the old. No attempt is made here to discuss the course of the passive resistance movements which were the end result of Indian radicalism, except insofar as is necessary to explore some of the issues which this paper has sought to address: the articulation of trader and radical ideologies; the potential of radical ideologies to forge cross-class or, indeed crossrace alliances; the extent to which that potential was realized, and the role of the Indian lower middle classes in that realization. The paper begins, however, with a discussion of Indian social stratification at the turn of the century, and in the 1940s. This is meant, first of all, to provide the background to an understanding of the nature of the essentially conservative, entrenched political parties which the radicals attempted to transform. The discussion also illuminates the conditions under which radicalism emerged. Finally it sketches the social and economic conditions of the mass of the Indian people in order to identify their specific interests. The varying extent to which, and the way in which, those interests were represented by Indian politics at different times is in itself a significant commentary on changes in the content of their ideological underpinning.
Major patterns of group interaction in South African society
(1974-03) Savage, Michael
Although recent historians have stated "the central theme of South African history is interaction between peoples of diverse origins, languages, technologies, Ideologies and social systems, meeting on South African soil", scant attention has been paid to such interaction by social scientists. Instead, most work in such disciplines has been segmentary, and focuses on the Internal arrangements or attitudes of one group rather than on the relationships that that group has to other groups or to the wider society. This in itself may be one reflection of the polarities of the society that have influenced the pattern of social research itself. The result however, is that outside of the work of historians, there has been insufficient study of the consequences of interaction between the different groups in the population. Yet, such interaction is one vital key to an understanding of the social structure. In this paper, an attempt will be made to overview the most important patterns of group interaction across the lines - ( political, ethnic, economic and class - that so clearly demarcate the major groups in South African society. The primary focus in this exploration of the contact and cleavages between such groups will be the present, with some attempt to indicate emerging trends.
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.)
Legitimation and control: Ideological struggles within the South African state
(1983-08-08) Greenberg, Stanley
In June 1979, Piet Koornhof, minister for Cooperation and Development, proclaimed before the National Press Club in Washington that "apartheid is dead." He may have been grandstanding, of course, but Koornhof's words also resonated at home where doubts about ideological orthodoxy were being expressed both within and outside the state. The Bureau for Economic Policy and Analysis at the University of Pretoria, with well-developed contacts within the government and the Afrikaner business community, reported in July 1980 that the "failure of socio-economic growth in the territories of the Black national states ... is becoming embarrassing." (1) The head of the bureau, Jan Lombard, referred to "separate development" as a 'sinking philosophy." (2) The perception has spread to yet more official "think tanks": BENSO has published articles that now refer to the failure of the "development paradigm." Little wonder, then, that outside observers, like John Saul and Stephen Gelb and Stanley Greenberg, have begun to write of an "organic crisis" or a "crisis of hegemony." (4) To understand the ideological ferment in South Africa -- and move beyond generalized statements about crisis (5) -- it will be necessary to elaborate the thematic aspects of a disintegrating, dominant ideology and of an emergent, and still fragmentary market-based substitute. This ideological transformation, we shall see, is rooted in political struggles within the state that center on these thematic changes and that depend profoundly on "connections" with actors and struggles outside the state.
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.
Local imperatives and imperial policy: The sources of Lord Carnarvon's South African Confederation policy
(1986-08) Cope, Richard
In February 1876 the General Manager of the Standard Bank of South Africa wrote that there was "a general spirit of enterprise abroad, which some ten years ago would hardly have been considered possible in such a country." It is a commonplace that the discovery of diamonds in 1867 set in train an economic transformation in South Africa, but its political effects were no less important. In the 1870s an attempt was made to construct a 'confederation' under the British flag, which it was intended would extend to the Zambezi in the north and to the Portuguese lines on the east and west coasts. To those whose interests lay in the development of a modern capitalist economy in South Africa, Boer republics and Black polities alike were anachronistic and obstructive, and the necessity for incorporating both into a united and efficient British dominion seemed imperative. In an article published in 1974 Anthony Atmore and Shula Marks argued that these "local imperatives" rather than Carnarvon's strategic preoccupations were the crucial forces pushing in the direction of confederation. I have sought to demonstrate elsewhere by an examination of the relevant evidence that Carnarvon's reasons for confederation were not strategic in nature, as Robinson and Gallagher and Goodfellow claimed,but that they were the sort of socio-economic considerations identified by Atmore and Marks. In this article I examine the question of how imperial policy came to correspond so closely to these 'local imperatives'.
Towards rupture or stasis? An Analysis of the 1981 South African general election
(1981-08-24) Charney, Craig
The results of the 1981 white general election in South Africa seemed paradoxical to many observers. After three decades in which white politics appeared dominated by the unchallengeable hegemony of the ruling National Party, white party politics seemed to have taken on a new turbulence and uncertainty. The Sunday Times reported, "Nat Voters Bolt to the Right", while the Transvaler headlined a "Leftwards swing". Very few seats actually changed hands, yet many commentators sensed that the election was a watershed. The confusing aspects of the election resulted from the play of contradictory political and social forces. This paper contends that the old ethnic-based class alliances which formed the basis of the white South African party system are unravelling. Though power did not change hands, the 1981 election traced the outline of a possible class realignment of white political forces, with potentially far-reaching consequences. In the aftermath, nothing seemed to have changed, but nothing would ever be quite the same. To illuminate the changes underway, we will begin with a discussion of the background to the election, then skip ahead to consider the patterns of change evident in the election results. This is followed by an examination of survey data to discern the emerging class division, and of how the strategy of the parties promoted or retarded its expression. The paper concludes with the implications of the new trends in the white electorate for the future of white politics in South Africa.
A comment on capital and the State in South Africa
(1977-08) Bozzoli, Belinda

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