PART V

Race and ethnicity became salient in South African society because the process of class formation and its dialectical opposite, class suppression, takes place within the process of differential incorporation of ascriptive groups into the social structure. This is why class conflict in South Africa is manifested in a racial and ethnic idiom. This is the dynamic inter-relationship between class, race are not necessary varieties of false consciousness; they can be aids to class consciousness. Sklar has identified a more dynamic approach to race and ethnic consciousness in situations of conflict by suggesting that instigated to action by the new man in furtherance of their own special interest which are constitute interests of emerging social classes 44. Observing the process diachronically we can identify the embryonic formation of an African trading counter-class. Clearly it was in the interest of such a class to create and instigate anti-Indian feelings and the emergence of the Zulu Hlangani Association is an institutional expression of this.

It is now necessary to spell out more clearly this process of partial class suppression. I have suggested that under the process of urbanization one saw the emergence of an embryonic African trading class or petty Bourgeoisie. This emerging class found its aspiration stunted by the Indian trading class, who resisted this challenge by opposing applications for African trading licences and generally they had at their disposal to defend the status quo. Eventually the Africans were able to achieve their objective of removing the Indian traders by taking advantage of the temporary absence of Indian traders during the riots, and by appealing to official government policy to operationalise the policy of giving trading preference among 'their own people', however the process was more complicated than way to an emerging African trading class; the white classes were also furthering their interests as the riot provided them with an opportunity and a pretext for suppressing, or at least curtailing, the Indian trading class. Rivalry between white and Indian traders in Natal and Transvaal was a long-standing one. The general pattern was for politicians to succumb to white pressure by appointing a Commission to investigate the allegations of 'unfair trading' by Indians. The Commission would hear detailed evidence and most of the 'allegations' would be found to be untrue. The Commission's report would be published and the government would propose some restrictive legislation against Indian traders that would partially satisfy the white traders until anti-Indian prejudice would emerge again in the public debate and the pattern would repeat itself. The first of these Commissions was the Coollie Commission in 1872, followed by the Wragge Commission in 1885. In 1921 a further report was set up to investigate the 'asiatic menace' known as the Lange Commission. I will quote three paragraphs from the Report:

'Many of the witnesses candidly stated that they had no objection to the presence of the Indian so long as he remains a labourer and does not embark on commercial or other pursuits'.

'The Natal Agricultural Union passed resolutions at their conference in 1920 that restrictions should be placed on land ownership among Asiatics'.

'Evidence of a Licensing Officer: we do what we can to restrict further Indian licences.... A European license is granted almost always as a matter of course, whereas the Indian licence is refused as a matter of course, if it is a new one'.

In the decade preceding the riots four so-called Penetration Commissions had been set up to investigate the 'penetration' of European areas by socially mobile Indians who wished to buy property in the 'better residential areas in Durban'. The result of these Commissions was that purchase of land in Durban by Indians was restricted first in 1943 and then more comprehensively in 1946. Thus against the background of African-Indian traders which constituted a much more serious threat to white hegemony. As described in Part I the boycott of Indian buses immediately after the riots enabled the corporation to gain entry for its municipal buses into the profitable field of black transport. When this encroachment into established Indian transport was challenged in court as ultra vires in terms of the Motor Carrier Transportation Act, parliament rushed through an amendment which enabled the Local Transport Board to grant licences to applicants where regular if it was believed that a further licences was in 'the public interest'. This enabled the Corporation to encroach legally on established Indian transport. The Group Areas Act was used in a similar way to muzzle and sometimes suppress the Indian traders. Thus the riots not only raised the status of a small group of African traders on the lower level of the racial hierarchy, it also helped to contain the threat to white hegemony by containing the power of the Indian trader.

The victory of the African trader was a pseudo victory for although the Indian trader was removed from the locations eventually-it took a further riot in 1953 before he was removed - the African was only given a toe-hold in commerce in urban. Because separate development holds that all Africans are temporary sojourners in the urban areas, the African trader is heavily restricted in his ability to accumulate capital. The African may not own land in Durban - except in certain exempted areas so is not able to negotiate a loan on a mortgaged property. He may only trade in the townships where Africans tend to buy the local groceries. When a trader does begin to show success, his licenses are restricted and he is told to expand his interests in the Reserves. The Minister of B.A.D. is reported as saying: "When a bantu trader in a location has sufficient capital to establish a large business, he must move his business to his bantu area, where the necessary facilities exist, among them the establishment of bantu towns. Another bantu trader must then replace him" 45. The aspiring African capitalist is told that his future is limitless among if only he will work among 'his own people'. In theory there are no barriers to African advancement in the reserves as from non-African groups will be removed- a society where the ceiling has by other racial groups has been for a system of vertical stratification. In practice the trader finds that while his advancement is restricted in the city, his 'limitless opportunities' in the city, his limitless opportunities' prove largely illusory in the reserves- the basis for autonomous growth are absent - there is no infrastructure and the purchasing power of the inhabitants is largely limited. Of course opportunities do exist for limited formation for what could be called a bureaucratic capitalist i.e. one whose business activities are dependent on the granting of monopolistic privileges by the bureaucracy.

The 1949 'race riots' are a case for what John Rex has called a 'race relations situation', in as much as the problem is subjectively defined as a problem of race and "sociology being the kind of discipline it is any attempt to define its field without taking into account the actor's own subjective definition of the situation must be seriously inadequate" 46. However, the sociologists understanding of a 'race relation situation' will remain incomplete so long as the 'meaning' of race is not related to the political economy - its entanglement with the social through the process of the class suppression mediated through incorporation of groups. Appeals African unity as took place before and after the 1949 riots are rhetorical statements -laudable in their intention, but will remain sociologically inadequate so long as they are not predicated on a careful analysis of the relationship between class and ethnicity and the conflicts of interest of a class nature within the Black society. Grievances however 'non-fundamental', existed in the Black society and the riots can be seen in part as a popular perhaps 'populist' - manifestation of this. To gloss over them in the interest of 'non-racial solidarity' is to ignore the extent to which race had become part of the "meaning" system of the participants through its entanglement with the social structure. Yet to speak of this conflict as a 'race riot' is to deal with the surface phenomenon only; these 'riots' are manifestations of economically based class conflict with a profound racial dimension.

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