leadership in an attempt to silence opposition to these
bodies no aparte dummy parliamentary bodies
established by the Government for those classified
Indian, Coloured and African have over the past
decades been able to function as tools of the Herren-
volk. The Native Representative Council was dis-banded in the early 1950's, the Union Council of
Coloured Affairs was disbanded in the 1960's, the
Coloured Representative Council was recently dis-
banded, the election for an Indian Council has been
postponed, and the proposed Coloured People's Coun-
cil is born dead. The bodies set up under the Bantu
Authorities Act were rejected throughout the country,
At present, attempts to establish Urban Community
77Councils are being effectively opposed by the African people.
The ANC, the SAIC, the South African Coloured Peoples' Organisation (SACPO) and the Congress of Democrats established Utility Unity to conduct cam- paigns against specific laws. They organised mass action on a particular day on a specific issue such as the pass system or against selected laws. They de- manded the repeal of these laws and then organised mass demonstrations or a mass one-day stay-at-home in an attempt to apply pressure on the Government to repeal them. These campaigns were never conducted to bring about fundamental change in the socio-po- litical and economic system of the country.
Rulers' Response: Legal Machinery
Nevertheless these campaigns and mass demonstra- tions and strikes did show a total opposition to the ideology of Apartheid; they did show very broad rejection of the policies of inferior schooling, of in- ferior housing conditions, of group area removals and the herding of people into instant slums, of influx control under an extremely rigid pass system and the growth of squatters camps, of the denial of Trade Union rights, of job control and inferior wages. And, because such mass opposition posed a threat to the continued implementation of separate development, the government employed its machinery to smash these organisations along with the Unity Movement.
Thus at every session of Parliament over the three decades from 1948, the Government in kragdadige fashion introduced new repressive laws to crush all opposition and to enable it to continue to implement its policies. The Suppression of Communism Act, The Public Safety and Criminal Laws Amendment Acts, The Riotous Assemblies Act and other legislation gave the government the powers needed to silence the voice of opposition by banning organisations and banning, banishing and incarcerating persons forming the leadership of these organisations.
But suppression of overt opposition to the ideology and policies of Apartheid did not blot out opposition to racial practices, did not silence demands for equa- lity; nor did it bring acceptance of "ethnic" divide and rule institutions.
And so, as a result of the winds of change blowing southward down Africa, as a result of international revulsion at Apartheid, but more especially because of determined and growing opposition to Apartheid by all sections of the unfranchised majority of the South African people, the rulers were pushed into making 'changes' that would give the impression that Apartheid was 'dying'. Part of this process has been the continuing name-changing aimed at making un- palatable concepts acceptable.
So the crude, insulting and abusive language of the 1950's has very awkwardly given way to a less crude expression of the assumed superiority of the ruling sec- tion and inferiority of the oppressed: the Depart-
ment of Native Affairs changed to Bantu Affairs and finally to Plural Relations. In addition the racist boards and separate counters have disappeared in certain places; sportsmen are 'permitted' to play 'normal' sport; people of colour serve on Transpor- tation Boards; persons of darker hue serve behind the
counters of very posh shops in the business centres.
But the essential apartheid structures that have been built over the centuries have remained and are in- tended to remain intact. T o the Herrenvolk they are non-negotiable. Parliament will remain 'White.*
Separate Group Areas for separate "racial" groups will remain. The fragmentation of the country into Homelands will remain. The Immorality Act will at- tempt to keep the Vrystaat pure.
But the political work that has been done by sin- cere, dedicated, correctly politicised and aware layers amongst the oppressed will ensure the continuation of the struggle. The next few decades will determine which ideology will triumph, what the nature of the future nation of South Africa will be.
The Basis of Unity
And for those who are impatient and feel that pro- gramme and theory do not matter and that the time for intellectualising is past, and that mass action is all that is required to topple the Government, let us quote from the paper "The Basis of Unity" delivered at the first all-in Unity Conference in 1944. Dealing with certain misunderstandings of the 10-Point Pro gramme, the introducer stated:
"Fourth, we come to the 'activists' who despise 'talk' and who feel that 'programme' and 'theory' do not matter. These ideas we shall have to change or we may find ourselves provoked into all manner of ad- venturist sallies. The Programme DOES matter.
Theory IS important. Your political theory means the way you sum up things, where you consider the interests of the oppressed to lie. This determines your direction; it determines the type of demand you make and the type of organisation you admire or follow or join; it determines your political activity. Indeed, we have become so used to the harsh PRACTICES of the South African Government that we usually forget that these harsh practices are based upon a T H E O R Y — the theory that the Europeans are the Herrenvolk and the trustees of the Non-Europeans;
the theory that the natural resources of South Africa should be harnessed for the benefit of the minority of shareholders and not for the majority of the workers.
"What we feel is the result of putting this theory into practice. When we say that the Programme is of Prime importance, we mean that without the right Programme, the right theory, we will never get the right practical activity and the desired practical re- sult; without the correct evaluation of the forces of oppression and the goal and resources of the op- pressed, our faces will not be turned in the right di- 78
rection and we will not spend our time in activities bringing us nearer to our goal. The only thing any political movement without a programme can do is a great deal of harm."
It was on the basis of this kind of analysis that Conferences of the All-African Convention, the Anti- CAD, the TLSA (after it took the New Road in 1943) always discussed in depth the National and International Questions, the Question of Landlessness and the struggle of workers in the Trade Unions. The fight against a particular law was never waged in isolation of the T O T A L F I G H T . It was on the bads of their own political and economic demands that the Leadership in the N E U M were able to analyse the Independence struggles in Asia and Africa and to distinguish between that gained through the struggles of the people of Vietnam for genuine freedom from Imperialist domination, and the Independence granted to a caretaker elitist class in India, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya. Malawi and other 'Independent' states in Asia and Africa that have to this day left the mass of the people as poverty-stricken after as before "In- dependence', and as uninvolved in the running of their country.
It was this type of analysis also that distinguished those in the N E U M from those in the SAIC who rejoiced at Gandhi's victory in India, and from those in the ANC and PAC who rejoiced at and hailed the victories of Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta, Hastings Banda and who — if 'Independence' had come in the 1960's — would have hailed Ndabaningi Sithole or Joshua Nkomo in Zimbabwe, just because they were black.
The struggle for fundamental change, for the full franchise for all, will be waged relentlessly for some time yet, so it is pertinent to include here a quotation from the leader article 'Some Problems of the Libe- ratory Movement' 'The Torch' of February 19, 1957:
"Perhaps the greatest single factor causing this painfully slow growth of the real liberatory move- ment is that such wide sections of the people and the leadership (young and old) are still looking for an easy way out, are still waiting for a miracle. This cuts across all sections of the population and is to be found in varying degrees in all political camps. This explains not only — at the lowest level — the conser- vatism and collaboration of those who work separate political representation and "Bantu" authorities, school boards, and committees, but also those who dramatically "defy" or "stunt" in some other way (That is w h y these two extremes exchange recruits so readily and so often). It explains why young self- styled intellectuals expect the sheer warmth of ideas they claim to have and understand to melt the inner walls of tribal, "racial" and political division among the people as well as the walls of a Herrenvolk Jericho.
And it also explains why defeatists, romantics and weary political travellers find it so easy to "write off"
the "trade unions" or "the intellectuals", a whole group, while stuffing themselves on childish dream- substitutes about an idealised "proletarian mass" or
"peasantry" or "the women".
"They are all miracle-mongers, even when they pay lip-service to a programme. Some of them, who consider themselves progressive, would be outraged if it were suggested that they were in fact waiting for a change of heart in the Government or a change of Government or compromise concessions as a result of some vague and generalised state of discontent among the majority of the people, or a stunt or a series of stunts, or outside intervention. But that is precisely what it boils down t o : they have no "ideas"
and certainly not even a vague picture of how the liberatory movement must develop, how and where in order to win success. There is a gap in their con- ception of the development of the struggle. And it is filled by hopes of a miracle — hopes of a solution that will not ask too much of them personally (and not for too long a period either)".
These words were true of a certain direction that the movement for liberation took in the 1950's and it is true of a certain direction that some people wish to give the movement today. Those who are earnestly dedicated to the struggle for fundamental change and opposed to a negotiated settlement (a sell-out) will have to wage a relentless struggle both against the oppressors and against those within the ranks of the oppressed who wish to steer the struggle into a blind alley so that they can work out a deal simultaneously with Imperialism and with Herrenvolkism on the backs of the very masses whom they claim to be fighting for. The history of Africa during the period that the 'Majority Rule' articles cover is strewn with such negotiated sell-outs.
It will be fitting in concluding this series to posit clearly the nature and the aims of the Non-European Unity Movement ( N E U M ) . The N E U M was never 'racialist' either in its declared aims or in any of its public policy statements and its literature in general.
The term 'Non-European' was used in the South Afri- can political context of the time to refer to all those who suffered national oppression, who were deprived of all citizenship rights and were not only exploited economically but also denied every one of the benefits of civilization; as against the citizen group of the popu- lation, who at that time chose to refer to itself as 'European'. The aim of the N E U M was to unite in a national (not nationalist) political organisation all those who had no vested interests in a colour-bar society. It had to break down the racialism that a very long period of political conditioning and indoc- trination by the rulers had created in the ranks of the oppressed, so that they had come to accept that they were African, Coloured and Indian, 'races' apart. It had to break down artificial barriers of all kinds that 79