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NATIONALFORUM

NATIONAL FORUM /

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PUBLISHED BY THE NATIONAL FORUM COMMITTEE

© Copyright 1983 T he National Forum Com m ittee

Published by T he N ational Forum Com m ittee P O Box 347 Johannesburg 2000

M R S A T HS COOPER, S A S O /ftP C trialist - recently released after serving six years on Robben island, is Vice-President of A Z A P O and convenor o f the National Forum Committee.

Foreword

T he history of political resistance in this country has been an interesting, if not exasperating, one. Controversy has been aroused not merely by the form and content of the liberatory effort b u t, im portantly to some, by the question of leadership and hegemony of the struggle.

W hilst the unity of the oppressed and exploited Black majority in this country has always seemed to be foremost in the minds of those striving for a liberated Azania, free of race, class, sex or other considerations which tend to create artificial differences, merely wishing this seemingly elusive unity or adhering to it *in principle’ is not enough. The people desire actual unity o f effort in the process o f struggle and constantly charge those in the leadership of the struggle not to be deflected from this course, lest the ruling class benefit further from the disunity.

And now, for the first time in the country’s history, this united effort based on certain non-negotiable principles, untainted by particular organ­isational positions, is being actively forged. It has never happened before that all political tendencies in the country have come together under one roof to discuss the future direction that the struggle is to assume. This remarkable feat was achieved on 11-12 June 1983 at Hammanskraal under the aegis o f the National Forum Com mittee.

Despite the blatant attem pts by sections of the media and vested interest detractors to surround the National Forum with confusion, organisations involved in all facets o f Black life and which operate outside system- created platforms were represented and participated actively in the delibe­rations.

The National Forum , which is non-sectarian, was launched in response to the crises facing the oppressed and exploited Black masses at this tim e in their dispossessed history. It is the realisation of a long search for a common working basis that began with the advent of the Black Conscious­ness M ovem ent in the early seventies in the course of which Steve Biko paid with his life. When the ‘new-deal’ strategy of the minority settler regime was fast becoming a reality and individuals and groups were becoming seduced by the politics of co-option, the dire necessity for the National Forum became obvious.

But, as the M anifesto of ihc Aziinlan people and the various resolutions and commission reports clearly state, the basis for a future closer working relationship of all relevant organisations of the people cannot be a marriage

of convenience which would em brace elements of the ruling class and thus be a sell-out to bourgeois interests. Those numerous organisations pre­sent nt the First National Forum know that they are on the only road to total liberation when the white press attacks the outcome of our delibera­tions and posits other groups as a counter. (No existing structure has either the am bit and principled broad base of the National Forum or is as qualitatively inform ed in socialist content for national liberation.) When the mouthpieces of the capitalist system, like the Financial Mail, condem n the only clear socialist docum ent to emerge from amongst the ranks of the Black people, then we are assured that our chosen path is correct. The struggling Black masses can never seek to appease the ruling class or solicit approval from its liberal apologists. W here in history has it ever been a revolutionary task to utilise programmes that em anate from the oppressors and exploiters or to gain sanction for struggling against them?

At the rendezvous of victory, the mass mind will not forget all those elements that attem pted to engender division and further the inroads of Pretoria and diminish the significance o f the National Forum.

In the years of attending gatherings, the writer has not attended more dem ocratic and open sessions as the AZAPO congress in February this year and this first National Forum . T he four commission reports, the seven resolutions and the M anifesto were accepted unanimously, and often with acclaim. Clearly, also, those present at the National Forum have sufficient revolutionary insight and political m aturity to accept that in this country there are various ideological tendencies and that the variation of em phasis, far from being an insurm ountable obstacle, enhances the quality o f struggle and guards against future totalitarianism and present monopoly of sectional leadership.

Saths Cooper (NFC Convenor)

Contents

Foreword Saths Cooper 5U nity and Liberation Bishop Desmond Tutu 9 T he role o f the church in prom oting unity D r Manas Buthelezi 14Nation and Ethnicity in South Africa Neville Alexander 19T he role o f Youth Temba M eyer-Felt 32Intervention strategies in Black education John Samuel 39The challenges of African education today 5 E Lenyai 46In search of national unity Lybon Mabasa 56R esolutions 62Com m ission R eports 64M anifesto o f the A zanian P eople 68

h lS H O P D ESM O N D T U T U it General Secretary o f the South African Council o f Churches and a member o f the National Forum Committee.

Unity a n d LiberationB ish o p D e sm o n d T u tu

Pream bleFriends, we are meeting at a very solemn and critical tim e — after the violence in Pretoria, M aputo and Bloemfontein and even more shatter- ingly after T hursday when three Blacks who had thought they were striving for a new kind of South Africa were hanged. I myself have said tim e w ithout num ber that I am opposed to all forms of violence — that of those who wish to uphold the vicious and unjust and totally immoral and evil system of apartheid, and those who want to overthrow that system. I Have also said that the prim ary and provocative violence is the violence of a deliberately inferior educational system intended to prepare our children for perpetual serfdom in the land o f their b irth , the violence of hunger and m alnutrition in their bantustans deliberately created as ghet- toes of poverty and misery, unlim ited reservoirs o f cheap labour, the violence of forced population removals when over 2 million Blacks have been uprooted from their homes and dum ped in the poverty stricken bantustans bereft o f their South African citizenship by a violence that has tu rned them into aliens in their m otherland; we are talking about the violence o f the m igratory labour system which forces men to live an unnatural existence in single-sex hostels, w ith deleterious consequences for Black family life; I refer to the violence that caused the death o f Saul Mkhize, the violence of harassing squatters at K .T .G camp and Crossroads; I refer to the legalised violence of detention w ithout trial and o f arbitrary banning etc. I have said many times before that this institutionalised structural violence of South Africa is making many blacks desperate as they despair o f peaceful change, for until 1960 since 1912 their political groups have struggled valiantly to bring about change through peaceful means. But what has been the result? A growing intransigence on the part o f the authorities, replying w ith teargas, police dogs, police bullet* and death; art escalating violence that has shu t out the possibility of peaceful negotiation through the dangerous tim e wasting sham of the so-called constitutional proposals. M any Blacks have despaired of peaceful change.1 have warned that when people become desperate, then they will use desperate method*.

Friends, we are meeting at a very critical m om ent in the history of our beloved country, at a critical period in the struggle to liberate all South Africans, Black and W hite, so that we all together, Black and W hite can live

harmoniously together in a land where all count not because of biological irrelevancies such as skin colour, bu t because all, Black and W hite, are created in the image of God and for that reason are of infinite worth in His

sight. . . .U nity is always a crucial m atter in the business of the liberation stniggle,

but never more so than now when we may be caught in a spiral of violence which will lead this beautiful land inexorably to a bloodbath, the so-called alternative too ghastly to contem plate. W e are meeting only a few days also before June 16th and all it says about the violence of apartheid.

The B ible and U nityI believe at the height of the W atergate scandal, M r N ixon exclaimed I m not a crook” and it appears he was sadly proved wrong. Despite that warning, I have to say as I have said before “ I ’m not a politician” despite all those who say I am a politician trying very hard to be a bishop. I have told people before, and I tell you who are gathered here this m orning that all I do and say are determ ined not by this or that political ideology. No, I act as I act and speak as I speak purely and simply from the pespective of a Christian leader obeying the injunctions not o f some political agitator but the imperatives of the gospel o f Jesus Christ. I base what I do and say as far as possible on what the scriptures dem and.

We all know that we Blacks, as they say, are slow thinkers. We could not think for ourselves that it was high tim e we held such a National Forum worried as we m ust all have been by the fragmentation of the Black com m unity making it easier for the enemy of the struggle to apply the old

ploy of divide and rule.We have been bickering am ongst ourselves forgetting that the raison

d ’etre o f our existence as organizations was not an end in itself, but was for the sake of the liberation of the oppressed first and then of the oppressor. T hose who rule us will say it was some sinister outside agents and agitators who first made us aware o f som ething that did not in fact exist, that we were oppressed, we were exploited, that we were manhandled unjustly and viciously through the most vicious and evil system since Nazism and Com m m unism . Can an agitator succeed to mislead people in Lower H oughton? Let him just try and tell them that they are sufTering and that they are exploited and oppressed and they will tell him to jump in the lake. T o say we have been got at by any agitator is to adm it that our situation is such as can be exploited by an agitator.

I want to pay a warm tribute to all those who have played an active part in the initiative for this u sh e rin g and also to those who have responded so splendidly to that initiative.

I want to take you back very briefly to Egypt when the Israelites were slaves there. You will recall that they were having a really rough tim e of it and they cried out to God and we are told He heard their cry and had come down to deliver them. He would do so through the human agency of Moses. Now this Moses had been saved miraculously from an early death and brought up by the daughter of Pharoah. We are not told how he refused to be co-opted to side w ith the oppressors, just how he came to know that he was not an Egyptian but a Hebrew , part o f those who were suffering so much in that land. How I wished certain people who are being tem pted or have been tem pted to co-operate w ith the oppressors o f their own people would learn a lesson from Moses who was adamant that he would not care to enjoy the luxury of Pharoah’s palace by com prom ising himself. You rem em ber that one day as he was strolling about, he saw an Egyptian ill-treating a Hebrew. Quick as a flash, Moses liquidated the Egyptian and buried him in the sand. On another day he saw two men fighting. This tim e it was two Hebrews having a go at each other. Moses stepped in between them and tried to get them to resolve their differences more amicably, rem inding them that they were brothers w ith a common goal and sufTering under a com mon burden and bondage. But they turned on him , “ W ho made you ruler over us? Do you want to kill us as you killed the Egyptian?” Moses fled when he realised that his secret was widely

known.It is a story so very apt for our time. W e have a common goal

liberation. We suffer under a common burden — the oppression of apart­heid. We are brothers and sisters in the one struggle. But what do we see? Instead of a people so united that not even a razor blade could find a gap between any two, we are more often than not at each other’s throats figuratively and sometimes even literally. I have said it seems we have not yet suffered enough for we indulge ourselves in the luxuries o f tifTs in public over ideological and other differences, whilst the oppressors laugh themselves sick that we are making their situation so much easier. We are doing their dirty work for them. We wash our dirty linen in public. W hat does it really m atter whether you say you are an exponent o f Black Consciousness and somebody else is an upholder o f the Freedom Charter, whether you are AZAPO, COSAS or Com m ittee o f T en — isn’t the most im portant thing the struggle itself for our total liberation o f all the people of South Afrjca, Black and W hite to live where the rule o f law obtains w ith habeas corpus holding sway, where all have full citizenship rights and obligations where all, Black and W hite, have a share in all im portant decision-making, where there will be an equitable distribution of »U the resources of country, mineral, land, wealth, education, social and eco-

nomic resources etc etc? Is that not what we are all striving for? W hy then are we so often at one another’s throats? Why are we so keen to den.gra e one another and impute the worst motives to one another and actually sabotage the liberation struggle by our petty jealousies, wanting to gam credit and credibility at the expense of our fellow Blacks, whilst the enemyrolls about in uncontrollable m irth?

Today, we are making a new start. We must be ready to speak only good of one another. We must refuse to discuss our differences, first in the press and in public before we have tried to sort out those differences privately

and amicably. . ,We must sink and swim together. An injury to one is an m,ury to all.

U nited we do stand, divided we will inevitably fall. We m ust not look for self-glorification and self-aggrandisement. W e are servant, of the people. We are servants of the struggle. We m ust draw together all Black groups to operate under one umbrella organisation. Let us show that by how we organise June 16th commemmorations. Let not one group do something special w ithout consulting the others. T he only uncom prom ising stand is against those who collaborate with apartheid. Otherwise let us work toge­ther Each finger is weak and vulnerable on its own. W hen all are balle up

in a fist then they are invincible. O ur struggle is just and righteous. So we

will overcome.

DR M A N A S B U T H E L E Z I is President o f the South A fncan Counal o f Churches and a member o f the National Forum CommHtee. ,

The role of the Church in promoting unityD r. M an as B u th e le z i

South Africa is at the crossroads. T he government is now busy adding final touches to its 30 year old programme of creating separate freedoms for the various ethnic groups. T he case in point is the so-called new political dispensation. T he casualty is the unity of the people of South Africa. O f all people the blacks should be the most worried at the slightest manifesta­tions of disunity in their ranks. W hat is tragic is that lately it appears as if we have become rather careless about allowing tendencies that underm ine unity in our midst. In the year 1983 disunity is a luxury we can least afford.

Before I go deep into my theme let me first describe what I do not mean by unity. U nity does not mean being the same, thinking one thing, saying the same thing all the time and having the same style of rhetoric. It does not even exclude the existence of a num ber of organizations in a com m unity, even though certain historical imperatives may sometimes prescribe the creation of one organization in order to symbolise the existing unity. Life would be drab and uninteresting if unity meant one thing as sameness.

On the other hand unity makes sense where diversity is assumed. Unity is then a mode of life in a situation of diversity. In this address I am going to characterize the role of the church in prom oting the desirable unity, particularly in our country. I do not need to spend tim e in arguing the case of the need for unity. The fact that we are gathered here is proof that we are aware of the need to forge links of unity. We cannot have true unity between Black and W hite while there is disunity between Black and Black. T he disease o f disunity is contagious. Hence we m ust work for unity on all levels. I believe that the church has a special contribution to make in prom oting unity.

The Church exists to prom ote unityT he C hurch does not only exist in order to prom ote unity, it is itself a product o f unity created by God in Christ. T here is in Christ primarily unity between G od and man and between man and man. T he Christian jargon for this process of unity is reconciliation. By drawing the world to him self Christ unifies all the parts of the world together. You cannot have unity if there is no common direction and common purpose. It is the main business of the Church to elucidate this common direction and advocate a com mon purpose amongst those who find themselves standing at cross purposes. All other functions of the church derive from this basic one.

D isunity takes various form s

T h i h tr tty o f RacismAccording to the bible heresy is not only wrong teaching, It is also the antithesis o f the church (Gal. 5:20). It is so because it supplants the very being of the church. Heresy is what divides. T h e crystallization o f the understanding of heresy as basically a perversion of orthodoxy is a later developm ent in Christian thought. Heresy threatened the unity of the structure of the church. I t was seen as a tendency to tear the structure apart in order to establish a sect outside the church. It was a counter-church movement.

Racism is a basic heresy in that it tears hum anity apart. I t is a refusal to accept the other person as part o f hum anity. Very often innocent things like culture and ideology become occasions o f divisions rather than of enrichm ent. In them racism establishes some o f its holiest shrines. Let us look at racial divisions within the church. I t is in things like separate church buildings and separate church structures where one discovers the confessional symbols of the cult o f racism. Separate houses of worship and structures of adm inistration may be neutral things in themselves, but when racism sets up its idolatrous shrines in them they lose their neutrality; they become confessional symbols o f a counter-church w ithin the church of Christ.

F or this reason it becomes necessary to declare racism and all its ideological manifestations as a heresy rather than merely wrong attitudes or policies. In our situation it is proper to declare apartheid, whether it is found between W hite and Black or between Black and Black, as a heresy. W e must be alert to the dangers of neo-apartheid particularly in the Black com m unity which elevates into ideological absolutes matters and issues which should essentially be viewed as nuances o f interpretation — an analysis. D ebate rather than branding each others as ideological lepers should be the right approach.

I do grant that in any quest for unity there are certain non-negotiable points w ithout which debate is a futile exercise. O ne o f these is, for instance, the rejection of racism and all the institutions that entrench it. T he art o f prom oting unity consists in the keen discernm ent o f the line of distinction between what are truly non-negotiable points and nuances of interpretation and emphasis. I believe that the C hurch can play a very vital role in relieving tensions in the Black com munity which may be created by the crisis o f discerning the line of distinction between my counterpart In dialogue and w hat may appear to be my ideological enemy. I t is In our interest to limit as far as possible potential enemies w ithin our own ranks.

Ideology o f Jear in RacismFear stems from human alienation from G od. In other words man fears because he has distanced him self from G od out of whom flows all authentic security and peace of mind. T o fear Is to feel threatened by the ob|ect whose proximity conjures up the experience of fear. Even the sublim ated fear o f G od which is part and parcel o f worship of G od is a reflection of m an’s sinful background as he stands in front of the holy G od, who is theultim ate object of fear.

We fear what we fear because to us it symbolizes the imminence of death. We believe that death lurks in its shadows. We see no coexistence between it and ourselves. T hat is why we at best drive away from us what we fear, if we can afford it, and at worst try to kill it. Fear in its aggressive form is a struggle to become a god over what we fear: to behave as if there was no God.

In South Africa apartheid is a way o f life based on the fear of the neighbour. As in all forms of hum an behaviour motivated by fear, in the instance of apartheid, distance becomes the measure of security. Expe­rience tells us that it is impossible to abolish our neighbour, or wish him away, short of physically killing him. This means that the social solution of creating distances between us and the neighbour does not help.

Racism closes its doors to the neighbour who does not belong to the in-group. It may be a narrowly construed ideological in-group. The minority complex may be at play here, that is, the fear of the majority. "Die security o f distance does not solve the problem of deep-seated fears which racism tries to resolve. Instead racism denies itself the opportunity of neutralizing fear by transform ing the imagined enemy into a friend. I t is natural for the minority to fear the majority. But I know of no shortcut solution than that the m inority should try to make friends with the majority. Fear of one’s neighbour is a rejection of the mom ent of fellowship in preference to the imagined solution of distance. T o run away from those who are our potential friends simply because at the mom ent they are different from us or that they look at things slightly differently.

Redem ption from disunityT he depth of the Christian understanding of unity consists in being prepared to be one w ith the other person even while he still poses a burden to us. Christ became one with the cross that caused him pain. T here is nothing as painful as living w ith somebody that disagrees with you. This mean* that dialogue is impossible w ithout the preparedness on the part of the parties to bear one another as burdens.

We know from experience that it is easier to deal w ith an enemy than it is

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to deal with a fellow Christian. W hy is that so? It is because all you have to do with an enemy is to keep him away from you or avoid speaking and dealing with him altogether. W ith a brother you have to struggle each moment to find the best way to live with him and repair through forgive­ness any broken form of relationship. T he same Is true of the fellow members of our respective communities.

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DR N E V IL I.E A L E X A N D E R , a former Robben Island prisoner, it the W ettem Cape Director o f the South African Council for Higher Education and an N FC member.

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Nation and Ethnicity in South AfricaN e v i l le A le x n m le r

T he imm ediate goal of the national liberation struggle now being waged in South Africa is the destruction of the system of racial capitalism. Apar­theid is simply a particular socio-political expression of this system. O ur opposition to apartheid is therefore only a starting point for our struggle against the structures and interests which are the real basis of apartheid.

In South Africa, as In atty other modern capitalist country, the ruling class consists of the owners of capital which is invested in mines, factories, land, wholesaling and distribution networks and banks. T he different sections of the ruling class often disagree about the best methods of maintaining or developing the system of ‘free enterprise’, as they call the capitalist system. They are united, however, on the need to protect the system as a whole against all threats from inside and outside the country.

D uring the past 100 odd years, a m odern industrial economy has been created in South Africa under the spur of the capitalist class. T he most diverse groups of people (European settlers, im m igrants, African and East Indian slaves, Indian indentured labourers, Chinese indentured labourers and indigenous African people) were brought together and compelled to labour for the profit of the different capitalist owners of the means of production.

Now, during the 18th and 19th centuries in W estern and Central Europe, roughly similar processes had taken place. But there was one major difference between Europe and the colonies o f Europe. For in Europe, in the epoch of the rise o f capitalism, the up and com ing capitalist, a class had to struggle (together with and in fact on the backs of the dow ntrodden peasantry and the tiny class of wage workers) against feudal aristocracy in order to be allowed to unfold their enterprise. T hrough unequal taxation, restrictions of freedom of trade and freedom of move­m ent and in a thousand different ways the aristocracy exploited the bourgeoisie and the other toiling classes.

In order to gain the benefit of their labours, to free the rapidly develop­ing forces of production from the fetters of feudal relations of production, capitalist class had to organise the peasants and the other u rban classes to overthrow the feudal system. In the course o f these struggles o f national unification this bourgeoisie developed a nationalist dem ocratic ideology and It* cultural value* and practices bcc-ome the dom inant one« In the new nations. T he bourgeoisie became the leading class in the nation and were

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able to structure it in accordance w ith their class interests.In the 20th century in the colonies of Europe, however, thesituation has

been and is entirely different. In these colonies, European or m etropolitan capitalism (I.e. Imperialism) hod bccome the oppressor who brutally ex­ploited the colonial peoples. In some cases the colonial power had allowed or even encouraged a class of colonial satellite capitalists to come into being. This class, being completely dependent on London, Paris, Brussels, Berlin or New York, could not oppose imperialism in any consistent m anner. I f it had done so it would in fact have com m ­itted class suicide because it would have had to advocate the destruc­tion of the imperialist-capitalist system which is the basis o f colonial oppression. After W orld W ar II especially, the imperialist powers realised that this situation (backed up by the existence and expansion o f the Soviet System) would put a great strain on the capitalist system as a whole. Consequently we had a period of ‘decolonialisation’ which as we now know, merely ushered in the present epoch neo-colonialism, which Kwame N krum ah optimistically called the ‘last stage of imperialism’!

In South Africa, a peculiar development took place. Here, the national bourgeoisie had come to consist of a class of white capitalists. Because they could only farm and mine gold and diamonds profitobly if they had an unlim ited supply of cheap labour, they found it necessary to create a split labour market, i.e. one for cheap black labour and one for skilled and semi-skilled (mainly white labour). This was made easier by the fact that in the pre-industrial colonial period white-black relationships had been es­sentially m aster-servant relations. Racialist attitudes were then prevalent in one degree or another throughout the country. In order to secure their labour supply as required, the national bourgeoisie in South Africa had to institute and perpetuate the system whereby Black people were denied political rights, were restricted in their freedom of m ovem ent,tied to the land in so-called 'native reserves’, not allowed to own landed property anywhere in South Africa and their children given an education, if they received any at all that 'p repared them for life in a subordinate society . Unlike their European predecessors in the 18th and 19th centuries, the colonial national bourgeoisie in South Africa could not com plete the bourgeois democrotic revolution. They com prom ised w ith British im per­ialism in 1910 in order to maintain their profitable system of super exploi­tation of Black labour.

They did not incorporate the entire population under the new state on the basis of legal equality, they could not unite the nation. On the contrary, ever since 1910, elaborate strategies have been evolved and Implemented to divide the working people into ever smaller potentially antagonistic

groups. D ivide and Rule, the main policy o f any imperial power, has been the compass of every governm ent of South Africa since 1910.

In order to justify these policies the ideology of racism was elaborated, syste- matiscd and universalised. People were throw n Into * set-up where they were categorised racially. They grew up believing that they were W hites, Colou­red, Africans, Indians. Since 1948, they have been encouraged and often forced to think of themselves in even more microscopic term s as 'X hosa’; ‘Zulu’; ‘M alay’; ‘M uslim ’; ‘H indu ’; ‘G riqua’; ‘Sotho’; ‘Venda’; etc., etc. T o put it differently: at first the ruling ideology decreed that the people o f South Africa were grouped by G od into four ‘races’. T he ideal policy of the conservative fascist-m inded politicians o f the capitalist class was to keep these ‘races’ separate. T he so-called liberal elem ent strove for ‘harmonious race relations in a m ulti-racial country’. B ecauseofthe development o f the biological sciences where the very concept ‘race* J/as questioned and because o f the catastrophic consequences of the racist Herrenvolk policies o f H itler G erm any socio-political theories based on the concept o f ‘race’ fell into disrepute. T he social theorists o f the ruling class then resorted to the theory o f ‘ethnic groups’, which had in the m eantim e bccome a firmly established instrum ent of economic and political policy in the United States o f America as well as elsewhere in the world. I t is to be noted that this theory o f ethnicity continued to be based on the ideology of ‘race’ as far as South Africa is concerned. F rom the point of view of the ruling class, however, the theory o f ‘ethnic groups’ was a superior instrum ent o f policy, because, as I have pointed out, it could explain and justify even greater fragm entation of the working people whose unity held w ithin itself the message o f doom for the capitalist apartheid system in this country.

T he fact o f the m atter is that the Afrikaner National Party used ethnic theories in order to justify Bantustan strategy whereby it created bogus ‘nations’ and forced them to accept an illusionary ‘independence’ so that the working class would agitate for political rights in their own so-called ‘homelands’.

T he idea, as we all know, was to create, revive and entrench antagonistic feelings o f difference between language groups (Xhosa, Zulu, Sotho, Tswana, etc.), religious groups (M uslim , H indu , Christian etc.), cultural groups (G riqua, M alay, Coloured e tc ) , and of course racial groups (Afri­can, Coloured, Indian, W hite etc.). I need not show here how this theory was designed to serve the interests of the ruling class by preserving apartheid (grand and petty) and how ruthlessly it was applied. T he litera­ture on apartheid is so large today that no single person could study all o f it In the span of a lifetime. W hat we need to do Is to take a careful, if brief, look at how the liberation movement has conceived of the differences

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between and the unity of officially classified population registration groups, the different language groups and religious sects that constitute our single nation.

Multlraclnllsm, non-racialism and antl-raclimThose organisations and writers within the liberation movement who used to put forward the view that South Africa is a multi-racial country com­posed of four 'races’ no longer do so for the same reasons as the conserva­tive and liberal ruling-class theorists. They have begun to speak more and more of building a non-racial South Africa. I am afraid to say that for most people who use this term ‘non-racial* it means exactly the same thing as multi-racial. They continue to conceive of South Africa’s population as consisting of four so-called 'races’. It has become fashionable to intone the words a'non-racial democratic South Africa as a kind of open sesame that permits one to enter into the hallowed portals of the progressive ‘democratic movement’. There is nothing wrong with the words themselves. But, if we do not want to be deceived by words we have to look behind them at the concepts and the actions on which they are based. ,

The word ‘non-racial’ can only be accepted by a racially oppressed people if it means that we reject the concept ‘race’, that we deny the existence of 'races’ and thus oppose all actions, practices, beliefs and policies based on the concept of ‘race’. If in practice (and in theory) we continue to use the word non-racial as though we believe that South Africa is inhabited by four so-called ‘races’, we are still trapped in multi-racialism and thus in racialism. Non-racialism, meaning the denial of the existence or races, leads on to anti-racism which goes beyond it because the term not only involves the denial of ‘race’ but also opposition to the capitalist structures for the perpetuation of which the ideology and theory o f ‘race’ exist. Words are like money. They are easily counterfeited and it is often difficult to tell the real coin from the false one. We need, therefore, at all times to find out whether our ‘non-racialists’ are multi-racial or anti­racists. Only the latter variety can belong in the national liberation move­ment.

Ethnic groups, national groups and nationsThe theory of ethnicity and of ethnic groups has taken the place of theories o f‘race’ in the modern world. Very often ’racial’ theories are incorporated in ‘ethnic theories’. In this paper, I am not going to discuss the scientific validity of ethnic theory usually called pluralism of one kind or another. That is a job that one or more of us in the liberation movement must do very soon before our youth get infected incurably with these dangerous

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ideas at the universities. All I need to point out here is that the way in which the ideologues of the National Party use the term ‘ethnic group’ makes it almost impossible for any serious-minded person grappling with these problems to use the term as a tool of analysis.

It has been shown by « number of writer* that the National Party’s use of the terminology of ethnicity is contradictory and designed simply to justify the apartheid/Bantustan policies. Thus, for example, they claim, amongst other things, that:

• The ‘African’ people consist of between 8 and 10 different ’ethnic groups', all of whom want to attain ‘national’ i.e. Bantustan ‘independence ;

• The ‘Coloured’ people consist of at least three different ’ethnic groups’ (Malay, Cape Coloured, Griqua and possibly ‘other Coloured’). On the other hand, ‘Coloureds’ are themselves an ethnic group, but not a ‘nation’.

• The ‘Indian’ people constitute an ethnic group as do people of Chinese origin, but these are not ‘nations’.

•• The ‘White’ people consist of Afrikaners and other ethnic groups but constitute a single nation i.e. the white nation of South Africa.

In all this angle of contradictions, the most important point is that every ‘ethnic group' is potentially a so-called ‘nation’ unless it is already part of a ’nation’ as in the case of the Whites.

We have to admit that in the liberation movement ever since 1896, the question of the different population registration groups has presented us with a major problem, one which was either glossed over or evaded or simply ignored. I cannot go into the history of the matter here. We shall have to content ourselves with the different positions taken up by different tendencies in the liberation movement today. These can be summarised briefly as falling into three categories:

(i) For some, the population registration groups are ’national groups or racial groups, or sometimes ethnic groups’. The position of these people is that it is a 'self-evident and undeniable reality that there are Indians, Coloureds, Africans and Whites (national groups) in our country. It is a reality precisely because each of these national groups has its own heritage, language customs and traditions’ (Zak Yacoob, Speech presented at the first general meeting of the Transvaal Indian Congress on I May 1983).

Without debating the point any further, let me say that this is the classical position of ethnic theory. I shall show presently that theuseofthe

23

word ‘national group’ is fraught with dangers not because it is a word but because it fires expression to and thereby reinforces separatist and disrup­tive tendencies in the body politic of South Africa. The advocates of this theory outside the liberation movement, such as Inkatha and the PI ?, draw the conclusion that a federal constitutional solution is the order-of the day. Those inside the liberation movement b e l i e v e contradictorily that even though the national groups with their different cultures will rontinue to exist they can somehow do so in a unitary state as part of a single nation.

We have to state clearly that if things really are as they appear to be we would not need any science. If the sun really quite self-evidently moved around the earth we would not require astronomy and space research to explain to us that the opposite is true, that the ‘self-evidently real is only apparent. Of course there are historically evolved differences of language, religion, customs, job specialisation etc among the different groups m this country. But we have to view these differences historically, not statically. They have been enhanced and artificially engendered by the deliberate ruling-class policy of keeping the population registration groups in sepa­rate compartments, making them lead their lives in group isolation except in the market place. This is a historical reality. It is not an unchanging situation that stands above or outside history. I shall show just now how this historical reality has to be reconciled through class struggle with thereality of a single nation. . . . •_

The danger inherent in this kind of talk is quite simply that it makes room both in theory and in practice for the preaching of ethnic separatism. It is claimed that ■ theory of ‘national groups’ advocated in the context o! a movement for national liberation merely seeks:

‘to heighten the positive features of each national group and to weld these together so that there arises out of this process of organisation a single national consciousness'

wherMS^he ruling class ‘relying upon the negative features’ (of each national group) ‘emphasises ethnicity’ or ‘uses culture in order to reinforce separation and division’. We can repeat this kind of intellectuals solace until we fall asleep, the fact remains that ‘ethnic’ or national group approaches are the thin edge of the wedge for separatist movements and civil wars fanned by great-power interests and suppliers of arms of oppor­tunist ‘ethnic leaders’. Does not Inkatha in some ways represent a warning to all of us? Who decides what are the ‘positive features of a national group? What are the boundaries or limits or a national group? Are these determined by the population register? Is a national group a stunted nation, one that, given the appropiate soil, will fight for national self­

24

V r

determination in its own nation-state? Or does the word ‘national’ have some other more sophisticated meaning? These are relevant questions to ask because the advocates of the four-nation or national-group approach maintain that a liberated South Africa will guarantee group rights such as ‘the right of National Groups to their culture* and that we have to accept that if the existence of national groups is a reality and if each national group has its own culture, traditions, and problems, the movement for change is best facilitated by enabling organisation around issues which concern people in their daily lives, issues such as low wages, high transport costs and poor housing. Or as other representatives of this tendency have bluntly said we need separate organisations for each of the national groups, which organisations can and should be brought together in an alliance.

These are weighty conclusions on which history itself (since 1960 and especially since 1976) has pronounced a negative judgement. To fan the fires of ethnic politics today is to go backwards, not forward. It plays into the hands of the reactionary middle-class leadership. It is a reactionary, not a progressive policy from the point of view of the liberation movement taken as a whole. Imagine us advocating ‘Indian’, ‘Coloured’and ‘African’ trade unions or student unions today I

(ii) There is a diametrically opposite view within the liberation movement even though it is held by a very small minority of the people. According to this view, our struggle is not a struggle for national liberation. It is a class struggle pure and simple, one in which tfie * working class' will wrest power from the ‘capitalist class'.

For this reason, the workers should be organised regardless of what so-called group they belong to. This tendency seems to say (in theory) that the historically evolved differences are irrelevant or at best of secondary importance.

I find it difficult to take this position seriously. I suspect that in practice the activists who hold this view are compelled to make the most acrobatic compromises with the reality of racial prejudice among ‘workers’. To deny the reality of prejudice and perceived differences, whatever their origin, is to disarm oneself strategically and tactically. It becomes impossible to organ­ise a mass movement outside the ranks of a few thousand students perhaps.

Again, the historical experience of the liberation movement in South Africa does not permit us to entertain this kind of conclusion. All the little organisations and groups that have at one time or another operated on this basis have vanished after telling their simple story which, though ‘full of sound and fury’, signified nothing.

(iii) The third position is one that has been proved to be correct by the

25

T h e P a s s L a w s

Mixed reaction to Government White Paper

CP Reportersr i l 11 the ^ m '1* ? f thf Government'! new Influx control* are

' : n* i V ,h ? <l* " , h o r ,h e <*°mpn» Will m u n relief* thousands o f S o u th A fricans.

n rH ?ru !dn £ ar,.ia™c n t’ experts* reac tion to th e W h ite P ap er on O rd erly U rb an isa tio n tab led in C ap e Tow n on W ednesday ranges tra m g rea t en th u siasm , to g u ard ed op tim ism , to o u trig h t condem na-

A nnouncing th e G overn m en t’s p lans. P residen t PW Botha said-N o o n e w ill eve r aga in su ffe r the ind ign ities o f th e pass law s."

T , eS! * Pi rty '“ d e r C olin E g 'in w elcom ed the deci-e d n r » i^ n .rn e -: j '• £ “ VaSI housin8 ' tow nship deve lopm ent, educa tion , tra in in g and jo b c rea tion p ro g ram s."

A Legal R esources a tto rn ey , who is an ex p e rt on influx .w ; . s. ' “ ' s not cosm etic , and really is the

abolition o f influx con tro l.”B ut the G ro u p A reas A ct still exists and b lack

people will not be allow ed to live in “ w h ite " area s, he said.

A leading Johan n esb u rg a tto rn ey said th a t a l­though the w h ite P ap er would give re lie f to mnny * the Id en tif ica tio n A c t could be used usedin th e sam e way as influx control.

N o-one can be forced to p roduce a “ do m p as" b u t they could be forced by a po licem an to prove th e ir id en tity “ w ithou t de lay " . This seem s to be a con trad ic tio n , rep lac ing the dom pas w ith ano ther S ta te docum ent.

T h e law yer said th a t a lthough influx contro l in th e b road sense had been abo lished , th e essential p illars o f ap a rth e id still ex isted . T hese w ere:• T h e G ro u p A reas A ct.• Popu lation R eg istra tion A ct.— S e p a ra te A m en itie s A ct.

T h e C ouncil o f U nions o f SA ca lled th e W hite P ap er "m ere ly a d isgu ise to p la ca te the in te rn a­tional com m un ity as regard s prom ises m ade in the past .

“ P P aren t th a t the finge rp rin ting o f all S o u th A fricans an d th e m onitoring o f o rd ina ry people by em ployers an d landlords m erely sh ifts th e responsib ility for punish ing w orkers," said C usa., A t the tim e o f going to P ress C osatu and the U D F w ere s till " in co n fe ren ce” and could not giveany ™ ------ — .1— -

‘Movement still restricted*B r MARY BURTON V; ...................... ..... _ .l U k l n t In p la n n in g to a b o lish in flux

T U B u /h i> . D . . , c o n tro l, It ex c h a n g e s th e h a te dT H E W h ite P a p e r on u rb a n i- d o m p a s fo r id e n tity docu -s a tio n m u s t be seen a g a in s t m e n ts w h ich a ll S o u th A fri-th e b a c k g ro u n d o f w id e sp re a d c a n s m u s t o b ta in “ a n d th ere s is ta n c e to a p a r th e id poli- W h ite P a p e r ac k n o w led g escics an d o f in c re a se d p re s s u re th a t b la c k c i t iz e n s a r e a lsof « m , " P a r u c u la r |y S o u th A fr ic a n s w ith th e ex-from fo re ig n in v esto rs. c e p tio n <,f th o se w ho a re

. T " c G o v e rn m e n t h as recog - T B V C c i tiz e n s "n iscd th e d e m a n d s fo r an en d B ut it Is e le n r th e G ro u pto ra c ia l d isc r im in a tio n . A re a s A c t an d th e P op u la tio n

R e g is tra tio n A c t w ill rem a in in fo rce an d th a t th e resp o n s i­b il ity fo r th e co n tro l o f th e m o v e m en t o f peo p le w ill be d ev o lv ed to local a u th o r itie s .

T h o se b od ie s w ill be b ased o n ra c ia lly s e p a ra te d g roups.

T h is d ev o lu tio n o f c o n tro l to

“ w ith loitering a n d co n g re g a t­ing and to e n su re th a t new m ig ran ts a re in fo rm ed o f th e ava ilab ility o f a p p ro v ed a c c o ­m oda tion an d e m p lo y m e n t” .

T h is is n o t m oving aw ay from racial d isc r im in a tio n . It

What PW’s Orderly Urbanisation will mean for youi l l " ' J 4 T rn m ' n,d U "|Cr" P 0f " m end " ‘|0 " h ' ^ h you r d m p u o r ' i t f docum e'n" L lnrk r 5 " r rcg lion* res tric ting by m aking a s ta tem e n t g iving de ta ils o f“ nux comroT’w l i d « emem "* ne" y° Ur identll*y-. or being i<fentified by I * r . P°llcies- someone who is carrying identification. If

Laws to be scrannm ) r •------- j,ou re fus<. m ee, , h(. req u eJt o f , he I

"authorised officer” to identify yourself, you could be charged and sentenced to six months’ jail, or a fine of R500.

A prominent civil rights lawyer says, I however, the new law does not provide for | police stopping everyone in the street and demanding identification - but then nor does it exclude this.★ South Africans o f all races will be issued with a new identity document. But while all races will gel them, the IDs will catogorise South Africans racially - they will contain particulars from the Population Register; that is, full details o f your race classifica tion.★ Responsibility for policing the new poli-1 cy will largely be switched from the SA I police to local authorities - community I guards and township blackjacks.

The experts say part of the new policy is 1 to “de-racialise” the laws - remove directly I discriminatory references. But the Squat- f ters' Act, the Slums Act and th t Aliens' L Act will affect Africans far more than! white, coloured and Indian communities, f

The Squatters’ Act and the Slums Act I can be used, they say, to prevent a flood of I people into the cities - by limiting the I numbers of people in houses and the type of I houses built. If community councils and I black local authorities limit the land avail-1 able for new houses, this will also keep I people out - it is they who must approve I “approved accommodation”.

The position of "independent" homeland I "citizens" is not clear - Heunis told report­ers on Wednesday it was still being negoti-. ated, but there is a possibility that the I Aliens’ Act could be used to retain dompas-1 like restrictions on them. [

Another possibility is that by restricting I available housing in the metropolitan areas, I the authorities could force people to follow f the Government’s decentralisation policies I - by making housing and land easily avail-1 able In Ekangala, for instance, while re-1 striding housing on the Reef, the auihori-| ties could force people to endorse them -1 selves out of the towns.

Laws to be scrapped com pletely . C onsti­tu tional D evelopm ent M in ister C hris H cum s told P arliam ent, are:• The Blacks (A bolition o f Passes and C o­o rd ination o f D ocum ents) A ct - th e Pass Laws.• T he Blacks (U rban A reas) C onsolidationA ct.• T he Black Labour A ct.• T he Black A ffairs A dm in istration A ct• The Blacks (P rohib ition o f In te rd ic ts) A ct.

H eunis added th a t the G overnm ent planned to have these changes in the law passed th is yea r - so fa r only th e pass laws have been scrapped.

Full de ta ils o f th e changes in the law are not yet availab le , b u t pass law experts have identified exactly w hat th e new policy will m ean to you:• W he ther you have a jo b no longer m a t­ters: If you have approved accom odation - th a t is you have your own house, o r a re a legal ten an t - you can live in a town o r city. T he 10(1) s tam p no longer m atte rs.

T he G overnm en t's defin ition o f housing is ex isting houses, core houses, shell houses boarding houses, hostels, hotels, Hats and inform al housing stru c tu res on approved sites.

This freedom Is res tric ted to black town- « yea r, y m people *" 'P S “ 'h e G roup A reas A ct, w hich pre-

w ere a rre s te d fo r pass law v' ! ’ts black people moving Into w hite areas, nces", In 1983 - th e Wljl rem ain in force.: - . . .u :- L .u -------- • - T here is no indication yet on how the

au tho rities will check on w hether you have approved accom odation , nor w hat they can legally do to you if they find you have not Indications are , say the experts , th a t you will not be cha rged In cou rt, as happened under the old system when you w ere found m town w ithout a valid s tam p in your pass.★ If you live in the ru ra l a reas and w ant to m ove to a tow n o r city , you can do so, i f you g et a house o r "approved accom odation".* You a re no longer legally obliged to c a rry your dom pas or iden tification o f any sort. But, accord ing to a new law to be

12-m illion were made criminals\ B O U T 5 0 0 0 p e o p le

ja iled for co n trav en in g th e :\iss law s have been re­leased follow ing th e G ov­ernm ent’s re laxation o f in­flux control laws.

A ccording to G overn ­m ent figures, 12-million people w ere a rre s te d for ‘offences" betw een 1916

and 1981 - 263 484 a year. Last yea r, 98 970 people

ire arres ‘ *"offences"........... .. - „ ,vyear in w hich th e n u m b e r o f pass law “ o ffen d ers" was highest - 262 900 people were arrested .

Most “o ffen d e rs” served ja il sentences o f six to ten days.

------ ---w low Iu UCpassed th is year, the M entification Bill, “ an au thorised o ffic e r" can still ask you to

SA ‘aliens’ face the bootlocal level w ill ta k e p la cc w ith - p la ces considerab le pow e"r In in th e rram cw o rk o l p rov isions th e hands o f th e a u th o r it ie s to t i ic n n tm l in m M ln ii ------- r.------ c u r |, |h e p re se n c e o f b |ac k

p eo p le in u rb a n a rea s .

.............. ... u i | > i u r i i i t i i n

In co n tro l s q u a tt in g , to en fo rc e h e a lth re g u la tio n s , to d ea l

A L IE N S in "n e ighbou ring s ta te s " (hom e­lands) In " w h ite " S ou th A frica - and those en te rin g the "c o u n try " Illegally - a re to be rep a tria ted .

£ S o says .D epu ty C on stitu tio n a l D evel­o p m e n t , ^ P lann ing M in is te r P iet Bu-

denhorst. O pening the Lebowa L egisla­t iv e A ssem b ly at S esh ego this w eek. Ba-

f?. ?>r11 e *n^ u* •■rge number* f o f alien* w at a cause for great concern.

It m ay a lso h ave serious consequences fo r a s tab le labou r m a rk e t '

history of all successful liberation struggles in Africa and elsewhere. I have found no better description of this position than that outlined by President Samora Machel In a speech held In August 1982 In reply to General Malan’s accusations that South Africa was being 'destabilised’ by hostile elements in the subcontinent.

In that speech Machel said amongst other things that:

‘Our nation is historically new. The awareness of being Mozambi­cans arose with the common oppression suffered by all of us under the colonialism from Rovuma to Maputo.

Frelimo, in its 20 years of existence and in this path of struggle, turned us progressively into Mozambicans, no longer Makonde and Shangaan, Nyanja and Ronga, Nyungwe and Bitonga, Chuabo and Ndau, Macua and Xitsua.

FRELIMO turned us into equal sons of the Mozambican nation, whether our skin was black, brown or white.

Our nation was not moulded and forged by feudal or bourgeois gentlemen. It arose from our armed struggle. It was carved out by our hard-working calloused hands.

Thus during the national liberation war, the ideas of country and freedom were closely associated with victory of the working people.We fought to free the land and the people. This is the reason that those, who at the time wanted the land and the people in order to exploit them, left us to go and fight in the ranks of colonialism, their partner.

The unity of the Mozambican nation and Mozambican patriotism is found in the essential components of, and we emphasise, anti­racism, socialism, freedom and unity’. (W I P no. 26).

This statement is especially significant when one realises that for many years FRELIMO accepted that 'there is no antagonism between the existence of a number of ethnic groups and National Unity’. This sentence comes from a FRELIMO document entitled 'Mozambican Tribes and Ethnic Groups : Their Significance in the Struggle for National Libera­tion* written at a time when the movement actually was under strong pressure from politicians who were consciously manipulating ethnicity in their own interest’ (J Saul : The dialectic of class and tribe).

Even earlier in 1962 a FRELIMO document stressed that ‘it is true that there are differences among us Mozambicans. Some of us are Macondes, others are Nianjas, others Macuas, etc. Some of us come from the moun­tains, others from the plains. Each of our tribes has its own language, its

26

specific uses and habitudes and different cultures. There are differences among us. This is normal . . . In all big countries there are difference* among people.

All of us Mozambicans — Macuas, Macondes, Nianjas, Changanas, Ajuas, etc. — we want to be free. To be free we have to fight united.

All Mozambicans of all tribes are brothers in the struggle. All the tribes of Mozambique must unite in the common struggle for the independence of our country’. (Quoted by J Saul).

The development of the Mozambican National Liberation ideology through the lessons learnt in struggle shown clearly by President Machel’* August 1982 statement that:

‘Ours is not a society in which races and colours, tribes and regions coexist and live harmoniously Side by side. We went beyond these ideas during a struggle in which we sometimes had to force people’s consciousness in order for them to free themselves from complexes and prejudices so as to become simply, we repeat, simply people’.

Every situation is unique. The experience of FRELIMO, while it may have many lessons for us, cannot be duplicated in South Africa. Certainly, the population registration groups of South Africa are neither *tribes’ nor ‘ethnic groups’ nor ‘national groups’. In sociological theory, they can be described as colour castes or more simply as colour groups. So to describe them is not unimportant since the word captures the nature or the direc­tion of development of these groups. But this question of words is not really the issue. What is important is to clarify the relationship between class, colour, culture and nation.

The economic, material, language, religious and other differences be­tween colour groups are real. They influence and determine the ways in which people live and experience their lives. Reactionary ethnic organisa­tion would not have been so successful in the history of this country had these difference* not been of a certain order of reality. However, these differences are neither permanent nor necessarily divisive if they are restructured and redirected for the purpose of national liberation and thu* in order to build the nation. The ruling class has used language, religions and sex differences among the working people in order to divide them and to disorganise them. Any organisation of the people that does not set out to counteract these divisive tendencies set up by the ruling-class strategies merely end* up by reinforcing these strategic*. The case of Gandhi or Abdurrahman are good examples. Middle-class and aspiring bourgeois element quickly seize control of such colour-based 'ethnic' organisation*

27

and use them as power bases from which they try to bargain for a larger •hare of the economic cake. Thii is essentially the kind of thing that (he Ilantustan leaders and the Bantustan mlddle-classes are doing today.

Because they are oppressed, all black people who have not accepted the rulers’ Bantustan strategy desire to be free and to participate fully in the economic, political and social life of Azania. We have seen that the national bourgeoisie have failed to complete the democratic revolution. The middle-classes cannot be consistent since their interests are, generally speaking and in their own consciousness tied to the capitalist system. Hence only the black working class can take the task of completing the democratisation of the country on its shoulders.

It alone can unite all the oppressed and exploited classes. It has become the leading class in the building of the nation. It has to redefine the nation and abolish the reactionary definitions of the bourgeoisie and of the reactionary petty bourgeoisie. The nation has to be structured by and in the interests of the black working class. But it can only do so by changing the entire system. A non-racial capitalism is impossible in South Africa. The class struggle against capitalist exploitation and the national struggle against racial oppression become one struggle under the general command of the black working class and its organisations. Class, colour and nation converge in the national liberation movement.

Politically — in the short term and culturally (in the long term) the ways in which these insights are translated into practice are of the greatest moment. Although no hard and fast rules are available and few of them are absolute, the following are crucial points in regard to the practical ways in which we should build the nation of Azania and destroy the separatist tendencies amongst us.

(i) Political and economic organisations of the working people should as far as possible be open to all oppressed and exploited people regardless of colour.

While it is true that the Group Areas Act and other laws continue to concentrate people in their organisations — geographically speaking — largely along lines of colour, it is imperative and possible that the organisations themselves should not be structured along these lines. The same political organisations should and can function in all the ghettoes and group areas, people must and do identify with the same organisations and not with ‘ethnic’ organisations.

(ii) All struggles (local, regional and national) should be linked up. No struggle should be fought by one colour group alone. The President’s Council proposals, for example, should not be analysed and acted upon as

28

of interest to lColoured’ and ‘Indians’ only. The Koornhof Bills should be dearly seen and fought as affecting all the oppressed and exploited people.

(Hi) Cultural organisations that are not locally or geographically limited for valid community reasons should be open to all oppressed and exploited people.

The songs, stories, poems, dances, music of one group should become the common property of all even if their content has to be conveyed by means of different language media. In this way, and in many other ways, by means of class-struggle on the political and on the cultural front, the cultural achievements of the people will be woven together into one Azanian fabric. In this way we shall eliminate divisive ethnic consciousness and separatist lines of division without eliminating our cultural achieve­ments and cultural variety. But it will be experienced by all as different aspects of one national culture accessible to all. So that, for example, every Azanian child will know — roughly speaking — the same fairy tales or children’s stories, whether these be of ‘Indian*, ‘Xhosa’, Tswana’, ‘Ger­man’ or ‘Khoikhoi’ origin.

(iv) The liberation movement has to evolve end implement a demo­cratic language policy not for tomorrow but for today. We need to discuss seriously how we can implement — with the resources at our disposal —the following model which, to my mind, represents the best possible solution to the problem of communication in Azania.

• All Azanians must have a sound knowledge of English whether as home language or as second language.

• All Azanians must have a conversational knowledge of the other regio­nally important languages. For example : in the Eastern Province, every person will know English. Afrikaans-speaking persons have a conversatio­nal knowledge of Xhosa and Xhosa-speaking persons will have a conversa­tions knowledge of Afrikaans. In an area like Natal, a knowledge of English and Zulu would in all probability suffice.

These are sketchy ideas that have to be filled in through democratic and urgent discussion in all organisations of the people and implemented as soon as we have established the necessary structures and methods.

The historic rote of the Black working clastThe Black working class is the driving force of the liberation struggle in South Africa. It has to ensure that the leadership of this struggle remains with it if our efforts are not be deflected into channels of disaster. The black

29

working d is i has to ict is t magnet thit draws ill the other oppressed layers of our society, organises them for liberation struggle ind Infuses them with the consistent democratic socialist ideas which alone spell death to the system of racial capitalism as we know it today. ,

In this struggle the idea of a single nation is vital because it represents the real interest of the working class and therefore of the future socialist Azania. ‘Ethnic’, national group or racial group ideas of nationhood in the final analysis strengthen the position of the middle-class or even the capitalist oppressors themselves. I repeat, they pave the way for the catastrophic separatist struggles that we have witnessed in other parts of Africa. Let us never forget that more than ■ million people were massacred in the Biafran war, let us not forget the danger represented by the ‘race riots’ of 1949. Today, we can choose a different path. We have to create an ideological, political and cultural climate in which this solution becomes possible.

I believe that if we view this question of the nation and ethnicity in the framework we will understand how vital it is that our slogans are heard throughout the length and breadth of our country.

One People, One Azania!One Azanii, One Nation!

M S TEMBA MEYER-FELS, an education student at the Vnversity of Capt Town, is Secretary of the Western Cape Youth League and a member of the Ptw ul'tlv Hill ArtinM fnm« Citpf Artirtn Ltitgilf),

The role of YouthTem ba M eyer-fels

The present phase of world capitalism is characterised by rampant infla­tion, wars, unemployment, mass poverty, together with the crushing of democracy and the rights of nations to independence. In short, the system which its apologists call 'free enterprise’ is beset by an inescapable crisis. This crisis strikes at the heart of the businessman’s profit-machine and he resorts more and more to fascist measures to keep the ailing system of exploitation in shape. Hence the rise of Thatcher and Reagan. This crisis also paradoxically ensnares the economics of the Eastern bloc and drives workers to take action against the bureaucracy. Hence the need to crush the democratic workers movement in Poland. And finally, this crisis damns the petit-bourgeois nationalist who has just taken over to keep his master’s exploitative machine intact. Hence the need for Mugabe to be more ■pragmatic’, to halt reform and nationalisation and to keep promises of real change for holiday speechifying.

The workers in South Africa having never had any semblance of demo­cracy, feel the capitalist crisis very acutely — witness the housing crisis, massive unemployment, starvation wages and high prices. The capitalist justifies this by talking about the 'downturn in the economy’ and the necessity to ‘sacrifice’, to ‘tighten one’s belt’ and be ‘patient’. But who has to sacrifice? Who has to be patient? Who has to bear the brunt of the crushing weight of this crisis? — the Black working class. The producers of the wealth of the country also have to bail out the masters in the hope that things will get better. But of course, the working class is not alone in feeling the effects of the structural capitalist crisis. The petit-bourgeoisie too feels the burden of high prices and inadequate housing. This feeling is exacer­bated in South Africa where both the Black petit-bourgeoisie and the Black working class suffer political oppression and have no democratic rights. The difference is that whereas the workers have no hope of fighting off this attack on their living standards without a complete change in the social relations in this country, the Black petit-bourgeoisie Is being offered the poisonous crumbs of reform, to make the workers bear the brunt of the crisis while wooing the Black petit-bourgeoisie to the side of the ruling class via promises of reform, viz. the essence of the Community Council Schemes, the 99 year leasehold, the ‘recognition of the rights of urban Blacks’, the schemes to sell half a million of the state’s housing stock and the PC proposals. And a section of the Black petit-bourgeoisie is ready to

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take the baitlBut lest it be said that we know about the Hendrikses and the Thebehalis

let us consider a more vociferous section of the Black petit-bourgeoisie who express indignant dismay at these paltry reforms offered by the rulingclass but who nevertheless are prepared to play the same role as the Hendrikses and the Thebehalis. Under their call for a national conven­tion round-table talk with the ruling class (ala Lanchaster House) and an alliance with NUSAS, the PFP, Black Sash and such like, they are prepar­ing a monstrous betrayal of the working class. The last hope of imperialism in this era of capitalist crisis lies with this petit-bourgeoisie stratum. And they are even prepared to resuscitate the old racially divisive structures like the Transvaal Indian Congress to play their insidious role.

With the past history of the betrayals of the working class by the petit-bourgeoisie nationalists and self-styled leaden we find that young people have a particularly vital role to play in our struggle. While faced with the prospect of unemployment and lack of housing, while being products of Bantu education, and victims of all other racist departments young people today have a very important advantage.

We are not products of that disillusionment and demoralisation which characterised earlier defeats of the working class inthe60’s. It is significant that the struggles of the 70’s and 80’s were marked by two major upsurges in 1976 and 1980, in which young people played so important a role. Unsullied by false illusions about petit-bourgeoisie nationalist organisa­tions from the past, new generations came forth to challenge the oppressors and to lend support to the heroic workers’ struggles of the 70’s and 80’s. Moreover, these youth stamped 3 indelible imprints on the course of our struggle:

' i(i) No real advance in the struggle can be1 made until the link betweenthe youth and the workers is firmly cemented.

(ii) We need not wait around for apparent well-meaning advice from liberal sectors of the ruling class and their academic allies at the so-called enlightened universities.

(iii) We need to eradicate all vestiges of racism from the organisations of the oppressed. Our struggle is an anti-racial one.

The Western Cape Vouth League (WCYL) was formed in March this year when a number of youth associations in Cape Town whose members based themselves on the need to unite working and student youth decided to link formally. The founding youth associations of the WCYL all showed one common experience — their desire to assert the paramount interests of the

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Collection Number: AK2117 DELMAS TREASON TRIAL 1985 - 1989 PUBLISHER: Publisher:-Historical Papers, University of the Witwatersrand Location:-Johannesburg ©2012

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