Documents: Africans Acting Alone

DOCUMENT 48g. "What Do the People Say?"  Editorial in Abantu-Batho, January 26, 1928*

"What do the People Say?

"They say: The department of Native Affairs has sent to the Johannesburg (Municipal] Council a Bill which seeks to amend the Natives (Urban Areas) Act of 1923. The purpose of this amendment is to give authority to town councils to make regulations to stop the movement of Africans and to move them anywhere.

"They say: The Council seeks powers to prevent Africans in various places and in the reserves from bringing their families to town, alternatively to prevent the entry of African women into urban areas and to compel those who are already in such areas to carry service contract passes.

"They say: This segregation which the Hertzog government and their white followers want to enforce between Africans and Europeans means:

"I: That Africans must agree to be removed from the places they already occupy and for which they hold title deeds; such places to be taken over by the government without giving the people alternative freehold-ing land. *Translated from Xhosa by J. Congress Mbata II: The creation of homelessness among Africans.

Ill: An increase in the number of roving African slaves, who, for want of a place to live, will give themselves over to European farms [to work on white farms].

IV: The escalation of poverty among Africans, because even those of them who own stock will lose much of it as they move from place to place looking for grazing ground on European farms and paying for it with their stock, as happens at present on the farms.

V: Continuing illiteracy among the young because they will grow up labourers with their parents on farms where there are no schools;
and even where schools exist, the parents will not be able to pay for the education of their children because of poverty.

VI: The compulsory return of urban Africans to their Reserves which are already crowded to overflowing because of the natural population increase and the crowding that is normal in these circumstances.

VII: The prevention of contact between Black and White because the Africans tend to assimilate in a very short time the education and culture of the White people and often excel in it.

VIII: Being forced into outside areas which are disease-ridden and which have no pre­ventive health facilities - areas where they will be herded together to die from poverty, to be the victims of disease and thus not increase, and to be decimated and ultimately become extinct.

IX: Arresting the progress of those leading Africans who are educated; turning them back into darkness and ignorance, with no under­standing or knowledge of enlightened govern­ment such as would enable them to demand a share in the running of the country, or complete control over their own affairs.

X: The setting up of squatters' camps and compounds for African women and girls where they will have to pay for a place to sleep, and where they will be treated like female prisoners of war, with white women to guard and watch over them; where white housewives will be able to select servants to work for them for almost nothing, seeing that these African women will be driven to do this by their destitute condition, and by the urge to escape from being treated like prisoners. In addition to all this the African men have long been inmates of compounds, and have been separated for many years from their families which they left at home because of pressure from taxes and because of circumstances which made it difficult for them to support their families.

XI: The segregation of White and Black means that people must not have any places of their own. They will be liable to be moved from one place to another, and will not be able to multiply and prosper; they will remain scattered. Meanwhile, the immigration of Europeans into this country is being stepped up so that the places of the Africans may be taken up by immigrants.

XII: It means being treated in a humiliating manner in their own properties -- i.e. for those (Africans) who still have some land of their own. It means being treated differently in the courts of law. In the administration of estates and in the contracting of marriages the treatment will be different. Administration will be placed in the hands of the police, the authority of the Chiefs will be ended and civil servants who have come from the police force will exercise authority instead. All will be forced to carry passes, and those who were formerly released from the obligation of carrying passes will have their exemption papers taken away from them and will revert to the position of being pass-bearers.

XIII: They will be expelled from the towns and from the locations. Meantime, they will have no place in the rural areas which are their reserves. They will wander about with no fixed abode and will be arrested for vagrancy and put in prison where employers will be able to hire them, paying them nothing, all payments for their work being made to the government. The situation will be very much as it is in the Kimberley diamond mines and the gold compounds of the Transvaal where use is made of convict labor.

XIV: Segregation means the separation of the Coloured people from the Black, the Coloured people being placed in the same racial groupings as the Europeans. The result will be a tendency for the Coloured people to look down on us. They will move away from us and misunderstanding between us and them will grow. They [Coloured and White] will take our women and girls to work for them as servants; they will make them bear children to increase the population classified as European so that this country will ultimately become a land of Europeans only.

XV: [It means] Taking away the vote from the Africans in the Cape and substituting a system under which they will not be able to embarrass their Parliamentary representatives with questions. Seven Europeans will represent them, and the number will remain seven no matter how big the African voters' roll is;
for, at the present moment, it is clear that the African voters in the Cape control twelve to fourteen seats held by Europeans who are in Parliament as a result solely of the decisive vote of the Africans.

XVI: Segregation means that the African vote must be exercised by government servants; by policemen and headmen who are government appointed, and who will vote according to the wishes of the ruling power.

XVII: It means suppressing freedom of speech so that we may not build ourselves up through meetings. It means denial of free speech to the African by which he would be in a position to reply to the wicked propaganda that is spread about us, and to react to the rough treatment we receive from the government and its supporters. Requests for the holding of meetings have to be directed to magistrates, headmen and the police.

XVIII: Segregation means that Africans must abandon their identity and [try to] become Coloured people, while the Coloured people will be obliged to cross over to become whites.

XIX: [It means] The end of all ambition for Africans to build themselves up as a people, because such ambitions can only come to people who are free from hunger; the African cannot achieve this in his present circumstances.

XX: Segregation means the retrenching of African workers from their jobs and their replacement by European and Coloured persons. Recently there was talk of importing White mine workers to take the place of African workers in this country.

XXI: Segregation means the Poll Tax and being taxed without a say in expenditure of
the money which the government uses in any way it likes.

XXII: It means giving the Africans -- and even then only a few -- a type of education which is different from, and inferior to, that given to the other races, with the prospect of progressively fewer children proceeding to institutes of higher education because of poverty among the parents.

XXIII: It means this: The exodus of Africans from the Churches [White-controlled] must slow down, become dry, and not flourish because the congregations will consist of poor people who will not be able to support their ministers, who in turn will not be able to teach the people anything.

XXIV: [It means] The deposing of African Chiefs and the imposition of restrictions to prevent them from speaking with one voice and coming together to fight for their rights:
all this, because there is denial of free speech.

XXV: It means the break-up of tribes ruled over by Chiefs, with people being removed from the jurisdiction of a chief and being placed wherever the government wishes;
where a chief dares to complain, he will be stripped of his authority and some ordinary person appointed in his place.

XXVI: Segregation means that if the Africans cannot swim they must sink in the pool of oppression and in the sea of [competi­tion in] building and pushing oneself to the top.

XXVII: Segregation means that, if the African cannot recognize that for him the way of salvation and success lies in his own efforts and in unity, then he will be destroyed by oppression, by poverty and by persecution, all of which will result from his failure to do things for himself and failure to work together."

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