PART III

Of what groups were the rioters composed? The participants in the riots were drawn mainly from the African sub-proletariat who lived in the compounds and shack-locations that had emerged in a makeshift way in and around Durban to house this semi-settled labour force which emerged in this period of rapid urbanisation of Africans. A glance at a map of Durban in 1950 will show that Africans were being housed in compounds throughout the white and Indian parts of the City, as well as in locations on the outskirts of the City. It is hardly surprising that the rioters should come from the shacks and compounds if we look at their living conditions. The Commission described the shack-locations as "a disgrace to any community that calls itself civillised... In these human rabbit - warrens something like 23,000 Natives lives under most sordid conditions. The shack areas are difficult of access, roads are non-existence, bad or indifferent and there is lighting. Consistency it is difficult, if not impossible, properly to a police these areas. They attract and labour lawless elements.

During weekends Native workers from elsewhere go to these areas for an outing; to obtain illicit liquor, to gamble and to meet prostitutes. It is not remarkable, therefore that during the riots the most shocking excesses were committed on the outskirts of these areas". Similarly living conditions in the compounds contributed to its inmates participating in the riot. The commission observed that "The fact that numbers of male Natives are herded together in compounds also seems to have a bearing on the riots. Such congregations of men are ready tinder to any spark, and it is clear that the compounds dwellers took part in the excesses". The living conditions in these compounds were known to be over-crowded as the 1943/1944 City Corporation Housing Survey had provided detailed evidence of the appalling conditions in the shack-locations of Cato Manor, Baumanville and Jacobs locations. A further survey, held a year after the riots, found one compound, authorised to house 4,456 with 13,000 men. It commented as follows: "Because of the serious over-crowding, it is difficult to store food, clothes and other personal belongings, although there are cloak­rooms where possessions may be left overnight. Food is usually kept in soap or cardboard boxes, clothes are usually hung from the walls. Cooking facilities, perhaps adequate for the authorised number of occupants, are insufficient to meet the needs of the number now being accommodated, with the result that men often prepare their food on paraffin stoves in the dormitories". They concluded that "data relating to the post­war period which have been made available by the Department of Native Affairs suggests that overcrowding is now more serious than it was time of the 1943/1944 survey" 31.

Social services in the black areas were largely d for the simple reason that white ratepayers alone were enfranchised as, according to the prevailing ideology of Stallardism, all Africans were 'temporary sojourners' in the white man's city, and, that small groups of Indian municipal voters that had existed had been disenfranchised in 1924. Stallard had led a Commission which reported in 1922 that the towns were the white man's preserve and that "the Native should only be allowed to enter urban areas, which are essentially the white creation, when he is willing to enter and to minister to the needs of the white man, and should depart therefrom when he ceases so to minister". In theory Government policy has remained that unchanged since Stallard and the ideal pattern of African labour remained that of single male contract workers who work for specified periods of up to one year and then return to the reserves. In practice the Government policy is ambiguous and ever since the Smit and Fagan reports in the 1940s, the Government has in fact accepted a large permanent African population in the towns providing townships to house them. In fact as late as 1948 a Corporation Commission under Justice Broome had reported on the appalling conditions in the locations and had recommended the immediate rehousing of 23,000 shack-dwellers as a matter of "social urgency". The Corporation chose to ignore this clear signal of social tension, but their laissez faire approach had its own rationality-rehousing would certainly expensive and Durban's ratepayer would certainly not be prepared to pay the cost. Provided the locations and compound still produced docile cheap labour, they were fulfilling their purpose. Besides, although the Corporation had assumed formal control of these locations in 1931 when the municipal boundaries had been extended, they had never established any kind of de facto control and these locations had developed their own sub-systems to exercise social control. Thus when order did break down that weekend it was a case of the police and army establishing control in these areas for the first time rather than a case of their attempting to re-establish.

While the bulk of the rioters seem to have been drawn from normally drawn from normally law-abiding workers we can also identify a group of professional petty criminals who took advantage of the temporary breakdown of order to loot. This category are usually referred to as tsotsis and they were organised into gangs who made a living by petty thieving or by exacting 'protection money'. Giving evidence at the Inquiry an African compound manager observed that: "I am of the opinion that our more educated unemployed young men (tsotsis) saw their chance and took a hand in the matter (and looted)".

What are the implications of the existence of criminal gangs for the contention that the riot was popular and spontaneous? Is there any other evidence of what Rude, writing on riots in eighteenth century England and France, calls the mob i.e. the hired bands operating on behalf of external interest? In spite of the existence of criminal gangs who looted, the majority of looters seems capable of sociological explanation in terms of theories of collective behaviour in riot situations. It has been suggested that looting can be seen as a rather violent beginning to a process of collective bargaining concerning rights and responsibilities of certain communities. Looting, they argue, is an index of social chance, it is also an instrument of societal change. They suggest that the pattern of looting passes through roughly three stages in rioting situation.

Firstly there is primarily symbolic looting stage where destruction rather than plunder appears to be intention. Then a stage of conscious and deliberate looting begins. Finally there is a stage when plundering becomes the normal socially supportive thing and to do and redefined to achieve some of material goods 32.

If we return to our African witness we can see a similar pattern revealed in his evidence. There were two distinct gangs, he said, "the ordinary African fought and smashed the stores" this would coincide with the first stage outlined when looting is purely destructive. He then says "After them came a gang which looted and where possible, set fire to the properties" -this would coincide with stage two when deliberate looting begins although it would seem that two stages run into each other. However the most widespread form of looting seems to have been during stage three when it became the normal socially supportive thing to do. There is impressionistic evidence that looting was socially acceptable at the time of the riots but more systematic evidence is needed to sustain this contention. It also could be argued that the riots were the rather 'violent beginning to a process of 'collective bargaining' concerning rights and responsibilities of certain communities', as the emerging African trading class in these locations quickly took advantage absence of the Indian traders and some of the anti-Indian language to initiate a process of 'collective with the Corporation. Allegations at the time went much further as they alleged that African trading interests had actually organized the riots. The Leader, an Indian paper, wrote shortly after the riot that 'The racial disturbances in Durban seems to be Organised move by certain native trading interests". Champion at one point alleged that the leaders were hiding in Cato Manor. However he later dismissed the claim by the Natal Indian Organisation (conservative Indian body pamphlets had been distributed by an African organisation calling on the Africans the Indians. I have found no evidence of such a pamphlet and when Champion called on the NIC to produce it they failed to do so.

The evidence of how the African traders 'bargained collectively' and advanced their position generally, is easier to evaluate. Kuper interviewed a clear example of the type who took advantage of the vacuum created by the riots, in order to establish themselves. "We started selling things after the 1949 because the people here had nowhere to buy groceries.... We used to see Indians from Isipingo coming with lorries full of their groceries and we felt that they were making lot of money and so we turned one of our r into a shop where we could sell to the people some of the things they required" 33. Again Kuper described the background to the trade rivalry and how Africans took advantage of it thus illustrating the 'process of collective bargaining' "African pressure for trading rights had been building up in Durban prior to the riots.

In 1948 the Native Affairs Department reported that sites were at a premium and that many were waiting to undertake the risks of private enterprise. As the demand for trading rights grew and was blocked by municipal control and Indian competition, there developed a force whenever the barriers showed signs of weakening. The riots effected a breach as the result of the destruction of Indian of Indian shops and the temporary disruption of African-Indian trade. Through this breach, illegal African traders emerged in the African areas of Durban, and more particularly in Cato Manor, where houses and stores had been burned, Indian men killed women violated. Before the riots, there were 22 licensed Indian traders and 11 licensed African traders. In 1953 the illegal traders Cato Mano area numbered 105. Kuper concludes that it "...is difficult to say whether rivalry for trade and bus transport was a factor in the riots. Certainly the African community was quick to exploit the consequences of the riots and the disruption of Indian trade. On the week following a mass meeting of Africans in Durban resolved to support an Indian boycott movement, and instructed the ANC and Durban Location Advisory Boards inter alia to:

'impress on the Indians that African development is such that African economic progress can no longer be delayed or -obstructed; ensure that whenever the African expresses willingness to take the services at present in Indian hands in predominantly African areas, the Indian should give proof of his good-will by disposing of these to the African at a reasonable price and that the African be given every facility to trade from African areas; ensure that where Indian buses run or shops are established, and where these do not come under African management, African drivers and conductors and salesmen employed 34.

Finally, in our attempt at identifying the composition of the riot, we must mention briefly those rioters who were actively incited and aided by Europeans. The Commission stated that "it is established that when the rioting was in progress certain Europeans actively incited the Natives...." A distinction must be drawn bet of encouragement: direct and - indirect, I will deal with the latter in the next section). There is evidence of some direct- encouragement of Africans but it is unclear how widespread it was. It was established in court that Europeans had transported Africans to the scene of the riot so that they could participate. A European male was arrested for indicating natives to set fire to an Indian store. A European witness said he saw police giving petrol and sticks to Africans to aid them in the riot. Senator Petterson was alleged at the Inquiry by Detective Sergeant Palmer to have tried to prevent Palmer from arresting Africans destroying Indian shops.

Having gained an impression of the composition of the rioters we must now explore how activity was generated among the rioters - how were they informed of the riot, how and where were they recruited? We know that the riot began at a congested bus terminus, but equally important is the fact that the bus terminus is next to a "Native Eating House" and a municipal Beerhall. It is not difficult to imagine what happened a brawl breaks out between an Indian and African and a small crowd gathers; at this point rumours begin to spread among the by-standers to the Africans in the Beerhall and, aided by the hostile stereotypes that are held by Africans of Indians, and the distortion that inevitably follows in this type of oral communication, angry men, possibly slightly drunk, emerge onto the street ready for a brawl. Calpin describes how the riot then developed: "The crash of splintered glass gave an opportunity to another type of rioter, the looter, who joined the initial brawlers.... the Natives now smashed shops for the purpose of loot... (26). In the strict sense of being unplanned the riot can be said to have been spontaneous; but in the sense that every participant tended to hold a stereotype of "the Indian" in collective and symbolic terms as an alien exploiter before the riot actually began implies, I want to argue, that the riot was structurally predetermined because the social structure incorporated ethnic and racial groups at different levels and the Indians were perceived to benefit by this differential incorporation. That night in the compounds and locations of Durban a kind of collective conspiracy took place and an attack on the Indians of Durban was planned for the next day. Giving evidence to the Commission an African compound manager said:

"Friday's riots were planned. Word went round that there would be a united attack on the Indians in the afternoon. Most compounds got the message' Numerous Ajrican witnesses at the Inquiry confirmed that it was generally known that an attack was to take place at noon on Friday - the rumours were that Indians had been killing Africans in the Indian Quarter. The rumours spread enormously quickly and we have evidence that within twenty hours of the riot rumours were rife in the rural areas of Northern Natal that the Indians had killed all the Africans in Durban. Clearly these rumours found fertile ground because of the structurally determined stereotypes held by the communities of each other. In plural societies the perception of people tends to be in stereotyped racial categories, but systematic evidence of these stereotypes is circumstantial during the period of the riots. A decade later van den Berghe undertook a survey of racial attitudes in Durban, where he found strong antithetical stereotypes held by Africans and Indians of each other. Africans described Indians as 'dishonest' and 'exploitative'; Indians described Africans as 'violent 'and 'uncultured' 35.

If rumours were the method of communication who were the carriers? Did any particular groups of people emerge as leaders during the riots? Is it possible that the informal drinking clubs or Ngoma dance groups provided the network of communication for rumours? Alternatively, the tsotsis gangs could have assumed a leadership role. Clearly further research is necessary into the informal groups that emerged in the early period of Ajrican urbanization if answers are to be given to these questions. If it was widely known among Africans that an attack was planned for the next day, why was it not known by the police? If it was known to the police which is more likely - why was preemptive action not taken? The Commission gave this answer to the latter question; "If Major Bestford had employed his non-European police actively in quelling the riots, they would in all probability have taken sides promptly and aggravated the disorders. He wisely determined to utilized these men only for guard duty on broken premises and for guarding shops..." The African police, it was assumed, would be partial in the conflict. It was assumed by all those involved that conflict would focus along predictable structurally determined stereotypes. But the assumption that the white police were somehow impartial was misleading-besides, consequences of the police not taking preemptive action was that they were "permitting" the riot to take place!

BACK TO INDEX PAGE