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The Origins of Extra‐Parliamentary Opposition in South Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

J. E. Spence
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Extract

‘There is cause for grave concern that South Africa has thus far been unable to develop any significant party, aggressively committed to a liberal solution of the racial problems.’ These words, written in 1956, by a distinguished South African historian, imply an important truth about South African politics, namely the extent to which the crucial issues of race relations have become, over five decades, interlocked with disputes between the two white language groups and partly submerged in the process.

These disputes have been ventilated in the context of a parliamentary system which since its inception in 1910 has remained the exclusive preserve of a white minority, determined to resist any challenge by the non-white majority for representation in the process of decision-making.

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Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , 01 October 1965 , pp. 55 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1965

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References

1 Kiewiet, C.W. de, The Anatomy of South African Misery, London, 1956, pp. 30–1Google Scholar.

2 Cf. the Nationalist argument that the policy of accepting non-white students followed until 1960 by the open English-speaking universities, was designed to produce ‘black Englishmen’. Since that date a number of ‘tribal’ colleges have come into being, ostensibly to cater for the educational aspirations of the non-white on an ethnic basis.

3 It is true that the English-speaking business class would benefit from the relaxation of the industrial colour bar; the entry of non-white workers into skilled and semi-skilled occupations would involve an increase in their propensity to consume and open up the prospect of a large and hitherto untapped market for the products of South Africa’s manufacturing industry. There are signs that this is already happening as the expansion of the economy imposes intolerable strains on the government’s policy of job reservation, and many industrialists have unilaterally raised non-white wages in recent years.

4 Cf. the following contrasting statements: ‘All South African politics is a quarrel between Afrikaners on what attitude they shall take to the English’ (General J.C. Smuts, speaking in the 1930s). ‘All politics is to bring together those who belong together’ (Dr D.F. Malan, leader of the Nationalist Party 1934–54).

5 In 1933, J.B. Hertzog, Prime Minister and Leader of the Nationalist Party (in power since 1924) formed a coalition with Smuts’s South Africa Party. A year later the two parties fused to become the United Party. A small rump of Nationalists remained in opposition as the Gesuiwerde Nasionale Party (the purified Nationalist Party) until their defeat of the United Party in 1948.

6 This group was severely handicapped numerically for Afrikaners have always formed a majority in the electorate. In 1936, for example, the number of Afrikaner adults was 15 per cent higher than the figure for English-speaking South Africans. Under the age of seven, the ratio was 215 to 100 in favour of Afrikaner children; similarly, in the age group 7–20 the ratio was 180–2 to 100 again in favour of the Afrikaner. (I am grateful to Mr S. Trapido, of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies for permission to make use of these figures which appear in an unpublished paper read at an Institute seminar on The South African Party System.)

7 These range from business and commercial associations (Chambers of Commerce, Trade Unions, etc.) to cultural movements, Women’s Organizations, and the Afrikaner equivalent of the Scout and Guide movement.

8 The effect of this electoral loading has been supplemented by the fact that the urban constituencies, traditionally the strongholds of the opposition parties, have often produced large majorities for successful candidates, and many of the votes are therefore wasted. Thus the Nationalist Party won the 1948 election with 40 per cent of the votes cast, and in 1961 51 per cent was sufficient to give them 103 of the 156 seats at stake.

9 In addition a Natives Representatives Council was established consisting of twelve elected African representatives, five white officials and the Secretary for Native Affairs as Chairman.

10 Alan Paton, Hofmeyr, OUP, Capetown, 1964, pp. 227–8.

11 Professor W. M. Macmillan has described the Great Trek (the migration of Boer farmers from the Cape in the 1830s and 1840s) as a ‘substantial defeat of the enlightened liberalism that triumphed in the Cape in the emancipation of the Hottentots in 1828, and of the slaves in 1838….’ Bantu, Boer and Briton, London, 1936, p. 167.

12 Rhoodie, N.J. and Venter, H.J., Apartheid, HAUM, Capetown, 1960, p. 140 Google Scholar.

13 Paton, op. cit., p. 224.

14 Smuts’s decision to support Hertzog’s legislation is well-expressed in the following quotation from the speech he made in the debate in the House of Assembly: ‘Of course, I could have died in the last ditch so to say, I could have said, I fight to the bitter end for the Cape Native Franchise, but what would have been the result ? It would not have been I who died, but the natives, metaphorically speaking.’ Ibid., pp. 224–5.

15 Walker, Eric, A History of Southern Africa, London, 1962, p. 769 Google Scholar.

16 In 1954 a small number of right-wing conservative United Party MPs formed the National Conservative Party. This party had a short life: its members either joined the Nationalist Party or lost their seats at the next General Election.

17 In this context it is worth pointing out that rumours of a right-wing revolt in Nationalist ranks appear spasmodically in the English-speaking press. Supporters of this mythical revolt are alleged to be in favour of a return to a policy of straightforward white supremacy, and object to the Bantustan doctrines as being too ‘liberal’.

18 Handbook for Better Race Relations, issued by the United Party, August 1963.

19 For confirmation of this point, see S. Trapido, ‘Political Institutions and Afrikaner Social Structures in the Republic of South Africa’, American Political Science Review, No. 1, March 1963, pp. 75–87.

20 ‘In 1927, General Hertzog calculated that 12 seats would fall to the Nationalists if African voters were removed from the roll. Similarly, in 1948, the Nationalist Party made no effort to hide the fact that they hoped to win 8 seats by removing coloured voters from the roll.’ S. Trapido, unpublished paper, op. cit.

21 ‘The present system of limited group representation of natives to be maintained, and an interim period of group representation of Indians on a system similar to that accorded to natives to be initiated. Subject always to due safeguards against disproportionate representation of any one section of the non- European population, the long-term policy to be taken in steps over a considerable period of years, is the ultimate placing of those non-Europeans who have passed suitable tests of a high standard, upon the common roll of voters.’ From the programme of the Union Federal Party in Krüger, D.W., South African Parties and Policies, 1910–1960, Capetown, 1960 Google Scholar.

22 This consisted of the African National Congress, the Natal Indian Congress, the Multi-Racial South African Congress of Trade Unions, and the white left-wing Congress of Democrats.

23 This native representation was abolished in 1960, and the party lost its precarious foothold in the House of Assembly and the Senate. Their role had become increasingly difficult as the following comment by Professor Julius Lewin makes clear: ‘By 1950, if not before, Africans had lost all confidence in white liberal leadership and in the restrained and moderate policies which it presented in the face of the formidable challenge of the Nationalists.’ Politics and Law in South Africa, London, 1963, p. 45.

24 See the following extract from a Liberal Party statement printed in 1960: ‘As long as the political struggle in South Africa is confined to the Parliamentary field alone, the Nationalists have shown that they cannot lose. They have marked the pack and every deal gives them all the aces. It is in any case impossible for four-fifths of our people, and the majority of members of the Liberal Party, to do anything at all through Parliament. They are excluded from it completely. Extra-Parliamentary pressure is therefore quite justified in South Africa and the Liberal Party is committed to its use so long as it is non-violent.’ ‘Symposium on Racial Policies of South Africa’s Main Political Parties’, Race Relations Journal, Johannesburg, Vol. XXVII, No. 4, October/December, 1960, p. 141.

25 The reference to the ‘liberal view so prevalent… in Parliament’ may be seen as a grudging admission of the liberals’ greater articulation and energy in the debate with the Nationalist government.

26 In the 1961 election the United Party conceded one-third of the total number of seats to the Nationalist Party - a move which hardly enhanced their claim to be an alternative government.

27 See the remarks of Mr B. J. Vorster, the present Minister of Justice: ‘They [the Progressives] were a dangerous Party, undermining the foundations of our existence.’ Rand Daily Mail, September 1961, quoted by S. Trapido, unpublished paper, op. cit.

28 Handbook for Belter Race Relations, United Party publication, August 1963.

29 ‘… Each race is represented in the Central Parliament in accordance with that state of civilisation it has reached, so that the most advanced groups will retain political power, although sharing it with the less advanced.’ (Mr Marais Steyn, a prominent United Party leader.) Ibid.

30 ‘… The Party gives the electorate a guarantee that it will not extend non-white political rights beyond those specifically defined above without first seeking the approval of a decisive majority of the electorate.’ Ibid.

31 The United Party lost 10 seats in these elections, most of which were in English-speaking areas.

32 ‘Indeed it might be accepted almost as an axiom that there is no prospect for the lasting success of any alternative to apartheid, and in particular no hope of bringing about a peaceful change in current trends of policy, unless it is possible to convince the white man that the dangers implicit in apartheid are very much greater than the risks involved in a common society organised on a democratic and non-racial basis.’ Cowen, D.V., The Foundations of Freedom, OUP, Capetown, 1961, p. 73 Google Scholar

33 Crick, Bernard, ‘Two Theories of Opposition’, New Statesman, 18 06 1960., pp. 882–3Google Scholar.

34 For a fuller discussion on this point see J.E. Spence, Republic Under Pressure, a Study of South African Foreign Policy, OUP for Chatham House, 1965, especially pp. 11–34.

35 House of Assembly Debates, 6 March 1964, col. 2632.

36 See for instance the work of the South Africa Foundation, a private propaganda organization established in 1959, consisting predominantly of businessmen and industrialists and concentrating its efforts in those countries which have important trading links with South Africa. An important feature of its propaganda is the stress laid on the material advantages enjoyed by non-whites in South Africa as compared with the inhabitants of newly independent black African States. Note also the argument in a recent leading article in the Johannesburg Sunday Chronicle: ‘It is a pity there is no way of testing the validity of the often repeated claim by the sanctions minded that Africans in the Republic are overwhelmingly for a world boycott in South Africa. In the absence of such a sounding, do those who will not even miss a meal have the right to decide for those who will unquestionably starve ?’

37 See an important speech by Sir de Villiers Graaff in Durban in April 1964, in which he accepted the government’s assumption that ‘Over all hangs the shadow of Communism and the cold war’ and asked for a joint standing committee of parliament to keep national defence problems on a non-party basis (Rand Daily Mail, April 1964). It is also significant that the government’s 1964 White Paper on defence was accepted by the House of Assembly with only minor criticisms, indicating a high degree of bi-partisanship on the importance of defending South Africa from external attack.

38 Cf. a letter to the Spectator (21 August 1964) from Jan Botha, National Public Relations Secretary of the Progressive Party: ‘Continued prosperity in the Republic with the added momentum of economic integration and closer economic ties with the Republic will do more to break down the artificial barriers of Apartheid than all the talk of sanctions will ever do.’

39 ‘The Urban Bantu will be given a stake in the maintenance of law and order by … the United Party policy of actively fostering the emergence of a responsible middle class as a bulwark against agitators…’ Handbook for Belter Race Relations.

40 Indeed, as Professor Lewin has pointed out, these are essentially ‘bourgeois’ demands. See his remarks on the African middle class from which the great majority of ANC leaders have emerged: ‘The African elite in the Union represent less a rising economic interest than an emotional and intellectual revolt against restrictive laws and personal indignities resulting from the colour bar. The equality they would prefer is that which prevails in a free competitive society based on capitalism, not that in a classless society based on socialism. But because this is only an embryonic middle class, and because it has been denied all opportunities of advancement as a group distinguishable from the mass of black labourers, it has in effect been forced to throw in its lot with the working class and to make common cause with it against the disabilities imposed on all Africans as such.’ Lewin, op. cit., p. 53.

41 ‘All people, irrespective of the national groups which they may belong to and regardless of the colour of their skin, who have made South Africa their home and who believe in the principles of democracy, are South Africans. All South Africans are entitled to live a full and free life on the basis of the fullest equality…. The struggle which the national organizations of the non-European people are conducting is not directed against any race or national group. It is against the unjust laws which keep in perpetual subjection and misery vast sections of the population. It is for the transformation of conditions which will restore human dignity, equality and freedom to every South African.’ Joint Declaration of the African National Congress, July 1951.

42 Lewin, op. cit., pp. 51–2.

43 ‘The ANC… can best be described as a movement with a strong elite leadership, with mass goodwill, considerable prestige and influence, but little effective organization. It always had many more adherents than actual members.’ Legum, C. & M., South Africa - Crisis for the West, London, 1965, p. 175 Google Scholar.

44 And indeed his limited success in South Africa in the years before the First World War.

45 We reject Apartheid and multi-racialism as pandering to white interests, arrogance, and as a method of safeguarding white: interests. ‘P.N. Raboreko, ‘Congress and the Africanists, The Africanist Cause ‘, Africa South, Vol. IV, No. 3, April-June 1960.