Chapter 10 - The Character, Role and Significance of SANSCO

It is now possible to interpret the character, role and significance of SANSCO. For this purpose, I draw on the previous chapters which discussed SANSCO's ideology and politics, organisation, mobilisation of students and collective actions. I also draw on the description and analysis of the political, social and higher education conditions in Chapter 6. Finally, the interpretation of SANSCO's character, role and significance is framed and guided by the conceptual framework advanced in Chapter 1.

There is virtually no secondary literature on SANSCO. The only commentary on the organisation, conducted as part of an examination of popular politics during the late 1970s and early 1980s, is that by J. D. Brewer in his After Soweto: An Unfinished Journey (1986). Although, as I will argue, Brewer's interpretation of SANSCO is highly simplistic and characterised by many contradictory, and even astounding, assertions, and thus is seriously flawed, it nonetheless provides a useful starting-point for my interpretation of SANSCO.

The Character of SANSCO

In his concluding chapter, Brewer describes SANSCO as a "radicalised Black Consciousness" organisation. He writes that:

During 1981 COSAS and AZASO changed their position on negotiation with Whites. They now support the idea of racial inclusiveness and of consultation with Whites of all political persuasions (Brewer, 1986: 425).

According to Brewer, SANSCO was "willing to consult with Whites in order to act as a political surrogate of the ANC" (ibid.), thus enabling SANSCO to "reap the benefits of [the ANC's] legitimacy". Moreover, this tactic opened up to SANSCO the possibility of "mobilisation on a mass scale..." (ibid.).

Brewer's analysis is misleading on a number of counts. First, the characterisation of SANSCO as a "radicalised Black Consciousness" (emphasis added) organisation is inaccurate and, since no reasons are provided for this attribution, it is, indeed, incomprehensible. The category "radicalised BC" only makes sense with reference to those organisations which continued to employ both racially exclusive organisation and a racially exclusive approach to political struggle, if at the same time they also sought to incorporate into BC doctrine concerns related to social class and working class leadership of the liberation struggle. In these terms, the Azanian People's Organisation (AZAPO) and the exiled Black Consciousness Movement of Azania could be regarded as "radicalised BC" formations. The political trajectory and development of SANSCO, however, were altogether different.

With respect to SANSCO's political character, two periods can be identified. First, there was an initial BC phase which covered the period from SANSCO's inception in November 1979 to its first national congress in July 1981. During this short phase SANSCO was closely linked with AZAPO, and also formally committed to BC. Moreover, it modelled itself on SASO and conceived of its role as essentially identical to that which SASO had previously played. Three reasons can be advanced for this argument.

First, the haste with which SANSCO was formed, and the absence of broad consultation and intensive deliberations with local student formations on campuses, meant that there was little critical engagement around the goals, programme and strategies that should be adopted by a new national student formation, let alone the desirability and/or feasibility of a new national formation. Second, the initial practices of SANSCO confirms that there was no critical reflection around what the SANSCO preamble termed, "the traditional role of black students in the community"; that is to say, the role that students had played under SASO. Finally, in seeking to promote black students as a "vanguard in the struggle for liberation", SANSCO explicitly assumed for students, and for itself, the kind of leading role that SASO had played.

SASO, however, had operated during a period when a political vacuum had arisen following the smashing of the liberation movements, and under these conditions it took on the challenge of re-kindling internal radical political opposition to apartheid, and, indeed, spear-headed such opposition. The immediate post-Soweto conjuncture and political terrain was, in contrast, very different in nature, characterised as it was by the existence of a number of national, regional and local anti-apartheid formations, by intense debates among activists around resistance ideology, politics, strategy and tactics, and the beginning of a bifurcation in radical opposition politics into BC and Congress movement camps.

Yet, there was a singular failure by the founders of SANSCO to pose critically the role of a national student formation in relation to these new political conditions. Instead, abstracting the role played by SASO from the historically specific conditions under which it operated, SANSCO elevated, universalised and ossified SASO's particular role into the "traditional role" of students. The close links between the founders of SANSCO and AZAPO also did not facilitate any re-conceptualisation and re-definition of the role of students and SANSCO.

At the inaugural conference, Nkondo, the AZAPO president, argued that students "should direct their energy persistently to conscientising the masses, particularly the workers". However, since, all blacks were defined as workers, this did not represent any more specific definition of SANSCO's role and confirmed that what was required was simply the kind of efforts that SASO had engaged in to politicise non-student blacks.

The encouragement of these conceptions within SANSCO cannot be accounted for by any simplistic reference to the 'logic' of BC. Nkondo himself had been an ANC member during the 1950s and, as later events showed, remained committed to the Congress movement. Moreover, among the founders of SANSCO were not only BC adherents but also some who claimed allegiance to the ANC, made possible by the fact that at this juncture there was no major gulf between the BC and Congress movements, and organisations were not yet indelibly marked as BC or Congress. Be that as it may, SANSCO's uncritical appropriation of SASO's role, its failure to pose anew questions of political orientation and to re-define its role all had the consequence of limiting its appeal and efficacy and rendering it ineffective. Indeed, when SANSCO was launched, COSAS, trade unions and civic organisations had already come into existence without waiting for black higher education students to play their "traditional role" or for SANSCO to act as a "vanguard".

The essential continuity with the pre-1976 BC and SASO tradition meant that far from being a "radicalised BC" organisation, SANSCO began, contra Brewer, as very much a “traditional” BC formation. However, the political identity of SANSCO was not static. In the eighteen months following its establishment it underwent a profound change in ideology and politics. It broke with a racially exclusive approach (if not with racially exclusive organisation) to political struggle and embraced non-racialism in political conduct.

It adopted an explicit, and essentially Marxist, race-class analysis of South African conditions, implicitly committed itself to the Freedom Charter and to socialist transformation in South Africa, and publicly aligned itself with the Congress movement. That SANSCO was "radicalised" is not in doubt. What has to be treated with scepticism, however, is Brewer's characterisation of SANSCO as a "radicalised Black Consciousness" (emphasis added) organisation. For the qualitative transformation in ideology and politics that SANSCO underwent rendered it singularly distinct from "radicalised BC" organisations like AZAPO and makes Brewer's categorisation of it in these terms inexplicable.

Clearly, Brewer has a poor understanding of the nature of the internal changes in ideology and politics that were occurring within various anti-apartheid organisations during the late 1970s and early 1980s and is thus unable to comprehend the real nature of SANSCO.

A second assertion of Brewer is that SANSCO was essentially an opportunist organisation that readily sacrificed its previous BC principles and its autonomy so as to be able to capitalise on the mass appeal of the ANC. If this was indeed the case, there is a failure on his part to exemplify to what distinct, and different, ends SANSCO sought to galvanise those that it allegedly mobilised on the back of the ANC and which did not accord with the ANC's own policies and project of national liberation. Here, it is again obvious that Brewer has little comprehension of the fluidity and complexities of radical and black opposition politics in South Africa during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Moreover, he also lacks an understanding of the specific conditions under and the processes through which SANSCO broke with BC and embraced the Congress movement.

The ideological and political re-orientation of SANSCO was not a one-off event but a process to which there were a number of contributory factors. Specifically, there was the split with AZAPO, and the actions of SANSCO's own Congress-oriented leaders to build close relations with Congress movement formations. More generally, the growing hegemony of the Congress movement within radical opposition politics in South Africa, the increasing popularity of the ANC, the Release Mandela campaign and mass student struggles of 1980, and the hegemonic position of student activists supportive of the Congress movement on various campuses also encouraged the re-orientation.

However, other conjunctural conditions were also decisive and an analysis of these helps to place in context the specific and general developments that led SANSCO to become part of the Congress movement, and also makes clear that the re-orientation of SANSCO, far from being an opportunist move, was occasioned by changing ideological and political dispositions on the part of its student activists.

One of the issues that concerned the Spanish scholar Maravall in his research on the Spanish student movement was how to account for the re-emergence of political dissent among students during the period of the Franco dictatorship (Maravall, 1978). In the South African case, SASO had, of course, inaugurated independent political activity and organisation among black higher education students, and two years after its suppression, SANSCO was formed to continue this tradition. Thus, there was only a short period of discontinuity in national organisation among black higher education students.

Consequently, of especial interest is not so much the revival of dissent as much as the particular ideological and political content of the dissent expressed by a formation like SANSCO. Although this was not Maravall's specific concern, his overall analysis is nonetheless suggestive and his explanation for the revival of political activity among Spanish students provides useful pointers.

According to Maravall, a number of factors were responsible for the re-emergence of political dissent among students. First, was the circulation of political literature, magazines and foreign books. Second, was the activity of underground movements. Third, was the activity (legal and semi-legal) of political activists. Finally, the moments of "deviant political socialisation" and direct political experience were also important contributing factors (Maravall, 1978: 100-02; 166-67). All the moments advanced by Maravall to account for the revival of the Spanish student movement prove to be important influences in SANSCO's reorientation.

To begin with the factor of literature: this can be considered under a number of sub-headings. In the first place the political literature of the ANC and SACP began to be more widely available from the late 1970s onwards. Such literature was crucial in providing an alternative, and more theoretically-informed perspective to that of BC, in stressing the relevance of the Freedom Charter, and in illuminating issues of political strategy and tactics. Articles on the history of political resistance and the liberation movements in South Africa enabled readers to place BC and SASO's role in historical perspective.

While ANC-SACP literature was usually read individually, it was often referred to in discussions among activists, and there were cases when such literature served as a basis for collective discussions and debates. The conviction and imprisonment in 1980 of two Rhodes University students for possessing ANC literature and organising reading groups, was only one example of a more widespread phenomenon (Interview with Pillay, 1987).

Second, the radical literature on the 1976-77 uprising, including Hirson's Year of Fire, Year of Ash (1979) and Brickhill and Brooks' Whirlwind before the Storm (1980), was influential in highlighting the weaknesses and limitations of BC and student political activism, and in pointing students to explore other political options. The theoretical and political debates in the pages of the Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE) also generated considerable debate around political direction and strategy (ROAPE, 11, 1978). Concomitantly, the writings of radical and Marxist intellectuals challenging the liberal school of South African historiography opened up new ways of analysing South African realities.

In this connection the works of Legassick, Wolpe, Johnstone and others were important points of departure from the traditional academic literature with its emphasis on race. Both radical books around the Soweto uprising and journals like ROAPE and others that carried the writings of the 'revisionist' school of South African historiography were generally freely available in the libraries of the white English-language universities. Through black student activists at these institutions, such literature made its way to activists at other black campuses and in the townships.

During the late 1970s the literature of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Western Marxists, already available in the libraries of the white English-language universities, also began to be sold at select bookshops. These writers were quickly purchased, or 'appropriated', by political activists, photocopied and shared. Lenin's "What is to be Done"was highly popular for its discussion of political strategy and became influential in shaping political practice.

Simultaneously, works on the revolutions in Cuba and Vietnam, books on, and by, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara and Ho chi Min, and African revolutionaries like Amilcar Cabral and Samora Machel were also more easily available. Machel, in particular, was tremendously important in re-orientating the politics of many activists, including some of the new leaders of SANSCO. As noted, it was a long statement of Machel's on "People's Power" that formed the basis of the SANSCO policy document. Moreover, Machel's "The liberation of women is a fundamental necessity of the revolution" was also important in the development of a greater concern around the 'women's question'.

Finally, no consideration of the role played by literature is complete without mention of two Johannesburg based publications, Work in Progress, and Africa Perspective, and the publications of NUSAS. Theoretical articles on capitalism and expositions on Marxist concepts in Work in Progress provided student activists with some of the tools for an alternative class-based conceptualisation of South Africa, while excellent coverage of socio-economic and political issues spanning various fields and geographic regions kept students in touch with local, regional and national developments. At the same time, NUSAS dossiers on the revolutions in Angola and Mozambique, and various booklets on political resistance and state strategies helped broaden and deepen the political understanding of student activists.

At different moments, to a lesser or greater degree, and in different ways, all of the literature discussed above was important in shaping the ideology and politics of the SANSCO leadership. Some literature, especially that of the liberation movements was not necessarily widely or always easily available and tended to circulate among small numbers of political activists. However, most, if not all, SANSCO leaders enjoyed varying degrees of access to, and were familiar with much or at least some of this literature. Still, Fawthorp, in writing about the ideology of the Western student movement, has argued that:

[A]lthough the movement is inspired by men such as Marcuse, Che, Trotsky, Mao and others, it is more than something built upon revolutionary books. The ideology of a live movement can only be understood in the context of the experience and development of its members (Fawthorp, 1969: 56).

In other words, the factor of the availability of political literature is, on its own, insufficient to explain the transformation that SANSCO underwent. The other factors identified by Maravall also need to be explored.

As in Spain, a political underground movement existed in South Africa and after the mid-1970s the ANC began to establish a more extensive infrastructure within the country. Members of the ANC underground were active in promoting and facilitating the formation of various organisations, and were often themselves active in mass organisations, and in this way influenced the ideology and political direction of student activists and the emerging mass organisations. The knowledge that the vast majority of the four thousand people who left South Africa in the wake of the 1976 uprising had linked up with the ANC rather than any other exiled liberation movement, and that many leading exiled BC activists had also joined the ANC, enhanced the prestige of the ANC among political activists within the country.

So, too, did the increasing armed activities of the ANC's military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). The experiences of Mozambique, Angola, and Zimbabwe, and of the 1976 uprising itself, suggested to many activists that armed struggle was an indispensable component of revolutionary struggle in South Africa. MK activities, growing in effectiveness and frequently linked to popular struggles, contributed to expanding the political influence of the ANC.

With regard to the legal and semi-legal activity of political activists, during and after 1976, numerous old ANC and SACP stalwarts took on more prominent and public profiles. In different parts of the country they both initiated and helped guide the development of local civic and women's organisations and trade unions. Such older activists, together with the BC members who embraced the Congress movement, also functioned as political tutors, mentors, advisers, and counsellors and thus played a vital role in the political schooling of the new generation of activists. It was such people, and frequently their families and political associates of old, as well as parents who had been involved in anti-apartheid politics in the past, who came to also provide a "deviant political socialisation" for some black student activists. One student commented to Frederikse:

"I can say that I heard about those true leaders from my parents, because we had some political books at home which I used to read" (quoted in Frederikse, 1986: 15). Another said that she learnt about politics "from talking to... knowledgeable people who can inform us about the situation we are living in, and what can be done about it" (ibid.).

Finally, and perhaps most crucial, were the direct and immediate experiences of the student activists who steered SANSCO into the fold of the Congress movement. In the first instance, the uprising of 1976 had a decisive impact on them. Most, it is certain, would identify with the student who told Frederikse :

The thing that made me politically minded was the influence I got from 1976.... In fact, June 16th was the day I started to have an interest in political activity in this country (quoted by Frederikse, 1986: 15).

For most SANSCO activists of the late 1970s and early 1980s period, 1976 marked the beginning of their road to student and political activism. All, in any event, cut and/or sharpened their political teeth in school and campus-based student formations and the educational and political campaigns of the 1976 to 1981 period, although some also had experiences of activism in the fields of civic and youth organisation and sports. Apart from those student activists who were from the very beginning inducted into Congress movement politics, the initial political orientations of other student activists varied from adherence to BC, to support of the PAC, as well as loyalty to small left-wing groupings based largely in the Western Cape.

However, the political allegiances to non-Congress tendencies were not cast in stone. During the 1977 to 1981 period, many activists were engaged in re-thinking, re-assessing and re-defining their ideological, political and organisational commitments and loyalties and thus it was not surprising that over a period such activists made their way into the Congress movement.

All these factors were pivotal in orienting and re-directing the ideology and politics of SANSCO activists towards a race-class analysis of South Africa, non-racialism in practice, and a commitment to the Freedom Charter and socialism. The "coalescence" with the Congress movement was, then, the outcome of SANSCO activists embracing ideological and political dispositions that were associated with the ANC rather than, as Brewer suggests, the result of any adroit and opportunist move. Moreover, if SANSCO's identification with the ANC did facilitate "mobilisation on a mass scale", it was towards common, if not totally identical ends, rather than any different goals related to SANSCO being a "radicalised BC" organisation - a categorisation that, as I have already indicated, makes no sense applied to SANSCO.

Finally, the most astounding of Brewer's assertions is that SANSCO was not only willing to negotiate "with Whites" but also supported "the idea of... consultation with Whites of all political persuasion" (1986: 425), and implies that this related to SANSCO's commitment to "the idea of racial inclusiveness" and was also "in order to act as a political surrogate of the ANC" (ibid.).

Given the control by whites of state apparatuses and the predominance of whites in positions of authority at higher education institutions, SANSCO's commitment to a strategy of mass mobilisation and organisation around the immediate educational and political concerns of students necessarily entailed "negotiation with Whites" for the redress of grievances and addressing of concerns. Indeed, negotiations with those in positions of authority was a concomitant of any strategy of effective mass mobilisation around day-to-day problems. There was also nothing exceptional in SANSCO's willingness in this regard - SASO had also negotiated with the white administrators of the black universities around student expulsions, suspensions and so forth.

However, there is a world of difference between a preparedness to negotiate in the interests of one's constituency and support for "consultation with Whites of all political persuasion". Even if SANSCO stressed the importance of political work within the "enemy" camp in order to erode the apartheid support base and win new recruits for the democratic movement, this is still a far cry from supporting "consultation with Whites of all political persuasion". As I noted in Chapter 9, SANSCO's political relations and network did not stretch much beyond the Congress movement.

Co-operation and consultation with other progressive political organisations was extremely limited. Relations with political parties and politicians participating in separate development institutions were antagonistic and non-existent. Thus, the claim that SANSCO supported "consultation" with all whites, including, by implication, conservatives and neo-fascists is, frankly, incomprehensible. Brewer provides no evidence to support his claim. It may be that he regards support for consultation with all whites as a necessary corollary of "the idea of racial inclusiveness". Yet precisely why a policy of consultation with whites of all political persuasions should derive from a commitment to non-racialism in practice is left unstated and, indeed, Brewer would be hard-pressed to demonstrate any necessary relationship between them.

If there was no predisposition to consult with all whites, there was, of course, a principled commitment to non-racialism in practice, and it is in this regard that "the idea of racial inclusiveness" takes on its real meaning. A pamphlet stated that SANSCO "developed a non-racial, democratic approach because this is the type of society we want. Our approach reflects an objective" (AZASO, 1983d). The commitment to non-racialism in practice was manifested in numerous ways, but especially through SANSCO's alliance with the predominantly white NUSAS. The relationship with NUSAS came in for strong criticism from BC and other left-wing student activists who charged that it was a ruling class organisation which sought to divert the national liberation struggle from a radical outcome. SANSCO's response was that:

[iIn any struggle we have to draw a line between those organisations that fall into the progressive camp and those which fall in the reactionary camp.... [T]his line has to be redrawn from time to time. We judge whether an organisation is reactionary or progressive by its political orientation and practice.

Since NUSAS adopted consistently radical positions on political and educational issues, it was defined as a progressive formation. Moreover, to the extent that it weaned white students away from conservative and liberal politics and contributed to creating divisions within the ruling bloc, it had to be encouraged. However, SANSCO was only too aware that beyond the NUSAS leadership was a constituency that included conservative and liberal students. Hence, its relationship with NUSAS was regarded as a strategic rather than principled alliance.

SANSCO leaders stressed that non-racialism had to be forged in the process of struggle and united action and also had to be visible. Well-intended suggestions that the relationship with NUSAS should be ended in the name of 'black unity', elicited the stock response that:

[O]ur organisation is organising against a particular system [and] towards a particular goal and therefore we have to avoid anything which will become detrimental to the particular goal (Phaala, 1983a: 13).

It was also argued that there was a danger of creating a "a monster which we cannot control" if initially SANSCO were to say "we are organising to fight whites" and then later to declare that "no, we are actually fighting the system"(ibid.).

Often, the plea for black unity was advanced by students who were interested in becoming politically and organisationally active but were yet to align themselves to any political tendency, or were attracted to SANSCO but concerned and confused about its relationship with NUSAS and the accommodation of whites in Congress movement political formations and struggles. SANSCO activists were encouraged to address the concerns of such students with great sensitivity and patience for they were in much the same situation as the Reverend Gqiba was in the early 1970s:

I had no political direction then, I just had hatred for the white man - until I met this old man, one of the greatest trade unionists of our times...That hatred needed some kind of a guidance, and it was through him that the right politics was instilled in me... After that I stopped hating the white man just because he happened to be white. Loza taught me that is a starting point - it's a process.... Being anti-white is a stage which I feel each and every individual should go through, but it's not an end in itself. We have to overcome it (quoted in Frederikse, 1990: 128).

The organisation understood that although the fundamental problem in South Africa was the structures of class and racial domination rather than whites per se, racial oppression was bound to engender among many students anti-white sentiments. Consequently, the policy was:

[W]e should not reject such students because superficially conflict in SA does play itself out along black-white lines. Such students are often BC in ideas though not in political commitment. They must be introduced to progressive analysis and thinking and won over to the progressive democratic cause.

Activists were urged to treat "anti-white slogans" as "primitive manifestations of political awareness", and to make it their responsibility to make sure that the primitive type of political awareness [was] translated into positive political action whereby the masses can ultimately identify the actual enemy, which is exploitation of man by man (Phaala, 1982 : 38).

The organisational challenge was to accommodate both "primitive political consciousness and create the necessary structure which will make it possible for the political understanding of the masses to develop" (ibid.).

On a few occasions misgivings were also expressed by branch activists about SANSCO's relationship with NUSAS. They were concerned that the relationship slowed the pace of student recruitment and argued that it was tactically legitimate to end the relationship or for relations to be limited to the non-public and leadership levels. However, such activists were usually persuaded against SANSCO adopting such a path. The majority of activists viewed dissociation from NUSAS as far more than a tactical shift and as a violation of non-racialism in practice. It was also felt that while an end to the relationship with NUSAS could result in more rapid recruitment, it also had the potential to create turmoil within SANSCO around its commitments to non-racialism, the Congress movement and the Freedom Charter.

Consequently, the organisation of students on a principled basis that ensured that SANSCO's ideological and political orientation remained intact, even if this meant a slower pace of membership growth, was favoured. What this illustrates is that SANSCO sought not to be a general student organisation that encompassed various political tendencies, but a student political organisation with a distinct and definite ideological and political character. Here, SANSCO was at one with Lenin. It turned its back on "ideological indifference", did not gloss over the differences in the student body but sought to "explain it as widely as possible and to embody it in a political organisation", and was also of the view that "only on the basis of a perfectly definite programme can and should one work among" students (Lenin, 1961d: 43; 50-53).

Despite its commitment to non-racialism in practice, SANSCO, of course, remained an exclusively black student organisation. This was due to strategic considerations related to the particular experiences and problems of black students and justified on the grounds that strategies and tactics were shaped not simply by principles and goals but also by structural conditions and the nature of the terrain on which mobilisation and organisation occurred. This approach, an adherence to principles coupled with a flexibility in strategy and tactics, was also manifested in other ways:

In the tactical alliances that were forged with university authorities around the governments' "quota bill"; and in the coalition with a wide range of organisations around the 1982 constitutional proposals. It was especially evident, however, in the tactically astute decision to retain the name "AZASO" and to only change to "SANSCO" when the organisation was well-rooted on campuses and politically hegemonic among students.

The point has been reached where it is now appropriate to conclude my engagement with Brewer and go on to other aspects of SANSCO's character. As I have shown, there is little evidence to support Brewer's various assertions about SANSCO. In any event, he ought to be well aware of the hollowness of some of the claims he makes in the conclusion to his book since they are at distinct odds with his comments in an earlier chapter. There, he acknowledges that within South Africa the previous "perfunctory genuflections in the direction of the ANC have been replaced by a greater political loyalty to its policies, practices and personnel" (Brewer, 1986: 265). He also recognises that:

Today's statements do not come from younger students merely because they wish to legitimise their own position or because they recognise the ANC's past relevance. They arise out of a new ideological agreement with the ANC (ibid.).

Yet, and this is an especially curious feature of his treatment of SANSCO, for some reason this more insightful and accurate conception of the basis of SANSCO's commitment to the Congress movement is overturned in the concluding chapter. Why this is the case need not detain us here. However, to the extent that the concluding chapter of a book represents an author's final thoughts, Brewer's characterisation of SANSCO and his account of its transition from BC to the Congress movement must be regarded as seriously flawed.

The nature of SANSCO's ideology and politics leaves no doubts about its revolutionary character. Its conceptualisation of South African society in terms of an analytical framework of racial capitalism emphasised that black oppression was rooted in both racial and national domination and class exploitation. Its goal of people's power embodied both a commitment to national liberation and the fundamental transformation of South Africa along socialist lines. While it advanced the Freedom Charter as the basis for the transformation of South Africa, it stressed that this manifesto represented its minimum demands - the implication being that its own commitments extended beyond the national democracy envisaged by the Freedom Charter and included the construction of a democratic socialist order.

There was also within SANSCO much reference to "true democracy". On the one hand, the concept was used to argue the limits of political rights and freedoms, a vote every five years and representative democracy, although it was recognised that in the South African context the winning of democratic rights and institutions would be an important achievement. On the other hand, it represented a call for political rights to be supplemented by various forms of economic and social rights, and for democracy within the political sphere to be complemented by popular democratic control of economic and social institutions. That is to say, liberation was understood in terms of conferring rights to social groups such as workers, teachers and students to participate in decision-making around issues that impinged on their lives. This is similar to the contention of the Italian theorist of democracy, Bobbio, that:

[N]owdays, if an indicator of democratic progress is needed it cannot be provided by the number of people who have the right to vote, but the number of contexts outside politics where the right to vote is exercised (1987: 56).
In other words, the criterion for judging the state of democratisation achieved in a given country should no longer be to establish 'who' votes, but 'where' they can vote;.... how many more spaces there are where citizens can exercise the right to vote (ibid.).

SANSCO's analysis of education provided a further indication of its essentially revolutionary constitution. The structure and form and content of education was related to capitalist social relations and apartheid education was conceived of as an essential element in the reproduction of race, class and gender domination in South Africa. On these grounds, the mid-1970s demand for equal education gave way to the call for people's education, an education which was to contribute to social transformation and was oriented towards primarily serving the social interests of workers.

Educational demands were conjoined with broader economic, political and social demands since it was held that people's education was, ultimately, only possible with the achievement of people's power. Still, education was defined as an important arena of ideological and political struggle and victories and advances in this sphere were seen as an integral part of building a democratic educational system and a democratic social and political order.

Finally, in its political and educational work among students, SANSCO confined itself to developing an understanding of the conditions that gave rise to the liberation movements' strategy of armed struggle. Understandably, there were no explicit statements of support for or promotion of the armed struggle, but there was strong tacit support. And on occasions this was not so tacit. According to Mguduso, some activists would insist in public meetings, [that] you must all go out and join Umkhonto...[and] in the 1985 conference there had to be an intervention from the NEC to explain that because of legal constraints there are certain things that we agree with but we cannot say so publicly (Interview, 1995).

The revolutionary nature of SANSCO was also reflected by its strategic predispositions. Whereas during the first eighteen months a key feature was a distinct lack of organisational focus, after mid-1981 a strong and consistent characteristic was the emphasis on mass mobilisation, democratic organisation and the development of a mass base on the campuses. On the one hand, a mass approach to educational and political struggle was conditioned by the reality of authoritarian campus administrations and an authoritarian political regime. It was recognised that only "mass mobilisation and democratic organisation" would "ensure our survival from attempts to divide and repress us". Moreover, it was also understood that united mass action spearheaded by a strong organisation was a necessary condition if students were to realise their educational and political demands. Hence the assertion of a SANSCO secretary that, "we don't need powerful speakers as much as we need creative organisers".

On the other hand, the stress on mass mobilisation and organisation and mass action was also conditioned by ideology - a conviction that the active and conscious participation of workers, students and other strata was a necessary condition of any meaningful social transformation. It was this belief that led SANSCO to stress that an Education Charter produced solely by intellectuals would be of limited value, and to place great emphasis on the procedural dimensions of the Education Charter campaign. This included a stress on mass involvement in the campaign, the insistence that the ECC had to contribute to the quantitative growth and qualitative development of its sponsoring organisations, and that it had to strengthen ties between SANSCO and other popular organisations. Indeed, part of the reason why the ECC was never concluded was that SANSCO refused to compromise on the EC being a product of mass participation. Democratic, participatory processes, then, were considered to be as important as substantive outcomes and products.

The strategic predispositions of SANSCO, and especially the stress on building mass organisation, coupled with a sober understanding of the repressive potential of the apartheid state, combined to ensure that SANSCO was characterised by a strategically and tactically calculating temperament and that there was little of the voluntarism and spontaneity that had characterised SASO. The "SANSCO approach" referred to in Chapter 7 included the schooling of activists to rigorously analyse cojunctural conditions in the political and educational spheres prior to the launch of collective action. Indeed, it was in terms of such analysis that SANSCO's themes such as "Organising for people's education and Student action for people's education" were formulated to give focus to its educational, political and organisational activities.

SANSCO's strategically and tactically calculating nature was best reflected by its campaign for the repeal of the death sentences on six ANC guerrillas. In some quarters the campaign was criticised as ill-conceived and "adventurist". SANSCO's view, however, was that the campaign was both politically necessary and strategically opportune. Though fully aware that the campaign could expose it to severe state repression it was felt essential to develop a political understanding of armed resistance and also to counter the state's labelling of guerrillas as "terrorists".

Moreover, the campaign was also seen as a means of testing the political response of students and other social groups to the ANC's armed activities. During the early 1980s there was no national political organisation to spearhead the campaign country-wide, and SANSCO's view was that popular organisations had to be protected from the severe repression that such a campaign could unleash. Higher education institutions were seen as providing a measure of political protection, and as a result SANSCO took the initiative to spearhead the campaign nationally.

The ideas, views and conceptions of SANSCO, and the so-called "SANSCO approach", gave the organisation its particular "cognitive identity" (Eyerman and Jamison, 1991). The discourse of SANSCO was, in the first place, the outcome of the engagement of its "organisation intellectuals" with various kinds of radical political literature. Second, it also stemmed from contact of key SANSCO activists with underground ANC activists and other political activists involved in legal and semi-legal organisations.

Finally, it was also the result of the deviant political socialisation and direct political experience of the "organisation intellectuals". To be sure, the political literature that was read, the advice and counsel of activists, and the direct political experiences were mediated and critically interpreted by SANSCO intellectuals and thus SANSCO's discourse was not pre-given but was socially constructed. Moreover, and to their credit, the "organisation intellectuals" advanced the important thesis that education was a site of struggle, and introduced the notion of people's education.

Yet, when SANSCO's ideology and politics are considered in their entirety, there was little that was particularly novel or innovative about the overall "cognitive praxis" and knowledge production of SANSCO intellectuals. That is to say, ideas and conceptions were by and large culled from various sources and, if adroitly synthesised into a general ideological and political discourse, represented no really original and distinctive thinking. Indeed, the output of SANSCO's intellectuals in the form of essays and articles around theoretical and contemporary political and educational issues was extremely limited. In part, this can be accounted for by the nature of the 1980s political terrain:

Numerous theoretical and political journals and scores of seasoned Congress movement intellectuals existed to elaborate and articulate ideological, political and strategic perspectives, thus sparing SANSCO intellectuals from this kind of activity. On the other hand, while within SANSCO there was a concern with theoretical and ideological issues, there was not a fixation with such matters. In a sense, ideology and politics were regarded in instrumental terms and the real pre-occupation was with mass mobilisation, organisation and collective action.

Still, given SANSCO's emphasis on education as a site of ideological and political struggle one would have expected that especially around education there would have been a greater attention to knowledge production. Indeed, one of the objects of the Education Charter campaign was to develop a greater understanding around education; and, despite the view that the Education Charter needed to be a product of struggle and the masses, there was ample scope for SANSCO intellectuals to initiate or produce discussion papers and articles to facilitate critical engagement around educational questions. No initiatives, however, were taken in this regard.

There was also a curious theoretical incongruence in the way that SANSCO conceptualised education that went unnoticed. Under the influence of Marxist reproduction theorists of education such as Althusser (1971) and Bowles and Gintis (1976), education was seen as an instrument of the reproduction of capitalist relations of production, and educational policies were viewed as unproblematically serving the functional needs of capital and its allied social forces. Educational reforms were interpreted as simply securing the reproduction of apartheid society through new means (Wolpe and Unterhalter, 1991: 5-6). Concomitantly, as I have indicated, education was also defined as a site of struggle. However, this dualism at the theoretical level was not overcome.

The recognition of education as a contested terrain did not lead to any re-conceptualisation of the functionalist argument that allocated to education an essentially reproductive role. And despite the intense conflicts around education, education policies and reforms were not interpreted as the outcome of political contestations but instead seen as flowing simply from the needs of capital and the state. Put in another way, there was a curious lack of recognition of the efficacy of student struggles and SANSCO's own part in them. While the need to struggle for reforms was acknowledged, state reforms were only understood in terms of reproducing racial domination and capitalism, rather than as necessitated by student and popular struggles and as creating new, and possibly more favourable, conditions for struggle.

If education was viewed as reproducing society, later, in terms of the slogan "Peoples education for people's power", education also came to be seen a mechanism of social transformation. However, the historically specific conditions under which education could contribute to undermining, modifying or transforming the racial and capitalist social order was never the object of detailed and rigorous analysis. Such an analysis would have revealed that the transformative potential of education was crucially dependent on conditions in the political, economic and other social spheres, and contingent on radical restructuring in these arenas. It was taken as a given, not incorrectly, that educational transformation was only possible in a free and democratic South Africa.

However, it was also blithely assumed that a transformed education system in a democratic South Africa would also guarantee a transformative role for education and there was no recognition that transformation in education was not a sufficient condition for a contribution to social transformation through education.

SANSCO's inattention to theoretical questions was coupled, during the late 1980s, with a sceptical attitude towards the production of knowledge that was not directly functional in the sense of serving the immediate needs of popular organisations and the liberation struggle. Progressive academics who maintained a distance from popular organisations, or whose writing was either critical of one or other aspect of liberation organisations, or whose work did not appear to be in any way connected to immediate political issues, were condemned as ivory tower academics. As a result, SANSCO activists were to draw the charge of being anti-intellectual. Indeed, there tended to be a gulf between many progressive academics and researchers and activists and a relationship of animosity and mutual distrust.

On the one hand, the intolerance and impatience among activists with certain progressive academics was not unrelated to the intense repression of the late 1980s and the exigencies of both survival and continuing to engage in mass action. On the other hand, there was also an absence of serious thinking around the purposes of radical intellectual production, around questions of the autonomy and accountability of intellectuals, and a general lack of appreciation of the intellectual labour of progressive academics and a refusal to acknowledge such labour as a form of activism.

Thus, Jakes Gerwel, Rector of the University of Western Cape was moved to point out that "good intellectual work entails hard work of a special type. It is as difficult, if not more difficult, than organising door to door work, street committees and mass rallies" (Gerwel, 1990: 3). The demand of activists for research that was directly functional in nature, for "relevant" research, drew the response from a left-wing intellectual and trade unionist that "... if political organisations made all the decisions we would have little pure science, no economic theory, no philosophy, and very little history" (Lewis, 1989: 68).

The hostility towards progressive academics who raised important questions about the theoretical, policy and strategic postulates of liberation organisations betrayed an unawareness of the critical function of intellectuals. For as Wolpe has argued,

if the role of research and writing is to be restricted entirely to providing the materials for and confirmation of already defined policies, then this is to reduce research to a purely ideological function and to deny any autonomy or value to intellectual work and hence to the critical yet essential function of such work (Wolpe, 1985: 74).

In other words, it was short-sighted of activists to expect progressive academics to be the ideological and political functionaries of the liberation movement and simply to accept without question the positions of the liberation organisations. Buci-Glucksmann has suggested that for Gramsci, an intellectual of whom SANSCO activists would have approved, "philosophy must produce knowledge for politics, without cutting itself off from the objective and scientific investigation of the world" (1980: 15). If SANSCO activists had seriously reflected on the question of the autonomy of intellectuals, and if they had been serious about academics contributing to political struggle, the rationale for such an approach might have been appreciated. For if research is not approached in the manner that Gramsci suggests, the knowledge production of progressive academics would become trapped in a situation in which, as in the case of Stalinism, "philosophy becomes a mere political instrument, never producing any knowledge for politics since it is already a political ideology" (Buci-Glucksmann, 1980: 15).

Enough has been said about the ideological, political and strategic aspects of SANSCO's character. To conclude this section, I now want to consider certain features of SANSCO that relate more to its internal organisation and structure.

Throughout the 1980s there was much emphasis on building SANSCO as a mass organisation. However, precisely what was meant by 'mass' was never spelt out. I have suggested that at its peak the membership of SANSCO possibly numbered some 5 000. Thus, if SANSCO sought to be a 'mass' organisation in the sense of incorporating the majority of higher education students as members, then relative to the size of the higher education student body SANSCO was by no stretch of the imagination a mass formation. In terms of such a definition, SANSCO was essentially a respectably large organisation constituted, in the main, by committed activists. However, if 'mass' denoted the desire to construct an effective organisation with popular support among a significant number of students, then to a large extent SANSCO achieved this objective.

SANSCO members and other progressive student activists constituted a tiny fraction of the overall student body and, in Hamilton's (1968) terms, were the "militants". Within the "militant" bloc, SANSCO members predominated. A small percentage of the student body, though larger than the "militants" comprised "non-participants" who for a variety of reasons refrained from any kind of political involvement altogether. The vast majority of students were "sympathisers" who, in the main, politically identified with SANSCO and its allied formations such as the UDF and participated in its campaigns and activities. The "militants" and "sympathisers" together constituted the higher education black student movement. The majority support for SANSCO among both these groups meant that SANSCO was the politically hegemonic organisation among black higher education students and organisationally hegemonic within the black student movement.

SANSCO's position within the student body can also be approached using Lenin's more fine-grained and politically grounded categories (Lenin, 1961). In terms of this framework, five groupings can be identified within the black student body - Congress movement supporters, Black Consciousness supporters, adherents of other smaller progressive groupings, "indifferent's" and "reactionaries" . "Reactionaries" were a very small component of the black student body, and their size and the fact that they generally kept their political allegiances private meant that they did not represent any challenge to SANSCO. "Indifferents", as the term implies, stood aloof from student political activity and were no threat to SANSCO.

Of the politically-aligned groupings, Congress movement supporters were by far the dominant group. Of course, not all supporters of the Congress movement were members of SANSCO. Many students identified with SANSCO without joining the organisation. A smaller number of students preferred being active in other campus organisations or non-campus youth, women's, religious and civic organisations, though they usually helped with important campaigns and projects. Moreover, the identification with the Congress movement was not always necessarily the direct result of SANSCO's activities - students were also won through the township-based campaigns of the UDF and the general mushrooming of support for the ANC. This facilitated the hegemony of SANSCO, if it at the same time made it more difficult for formations like AZASM and SOYA to have much of an impact on the campuses.

With respect to institutional presence, SANSCO was predominantly located at universities and technikons and had a limited presence at teacher-training colleges. Colleges were of strategic importance for two reasons. First, their location in the rural areas of bantustans provided the possibility of student activists contributing to the political activation of rural communities. Second, college students represented the future generation of school teachers and their political mobilisation and involvement in campaigns such as that around the Education Charter could have had a positive effect on the attempts to build people's education in schools.

The strategic significance of teacher-training colleges was belatedly recognised, and though efforts were made expand into colleges, only a small number were represented within SANSCO. However, the existence of over one hundred colleges, their geographical spread and location, their administrative control by bantustan governments and the extremely authoritarian character of these institutions also meant that were major obstacles around organising them. The fact that SANSCO mainly existed at universities and technikons meant that geographically it was concentrated in large cities and the more urbanised areas of the bantustans and had a limited presence in the rural areas.

The domination of SANSCO by university students and urban campuses was also reflected in the composition of the national executive committees (NECs) elected by various congresses. The vast majority of NEC members were from universities, and frequently from the white English-language universities and the urban campuses of the universities of Durban-Westville and Western Cape, which gave these campuses a representation at leadership level that was out of proportion to membership on the ground. Thus, in 1981, 75% of NEC members were from these campuses, in 1983 70%, and in 1987 87.5%. Moreover, all the SANSCO presidents, bar the 1984-85 president who was from the University of Zululand, came from English-language universities.

The election to national office of activists from the white English-language institutions and UWC and UDW may have been influenced by considerations such as the greater facilities and material resources available at such campuses, the repressive conditions on most black campuses and ease of communication and contact. Be that as it may, the composition of the NEC gave SANSCO the image of being an organisation solely for university students, and it was not surprising that at the 1987 congress regret was expressed for giving this impression.

Finally, SANSCO was a predominantly male organisation. During the late 1980s, women students constituted over 40% of university students, about 38% of technikon enrolments and over 60% of teacher-trainees (Table 3, Chapter 6). However, women members would probably have made up no more than 15% of overall members, so that in relation to the gender composition of the student body women were severely under-represented within SANSCO. This under-representation also extended to SANSCO's branch, regional and national executive structures, which were essentially comprised of male activists. Indeed, between 1979 and 1990, apart from the obligatory election of a woman to the portfolio of women's organiser, only one woman was ever elected to the national executive.

There was, as was noted, much concern around the lack of participation of women in SANSCO and various attempts to address the problem. However, genuflection's around the importance of women's involvement in SANSCO aside, the mobilisation and organisation of women was generally treated by male members as the task of women activists. According to an activist, during the early 1980s there was:

Something of a tension between the acceptance of the need to organise students more generally and the need to organise women. It was always at the initiative of women who were particularly concerned about women's issues that initiatives were taken. So ... whilst there was an in principle commitment, carrying the can really rested with women students within AZASO (Interview with Africa, 1995).

There was little change during the late 1980s. Thus, the SANSCO women's organiser reported that:

[O]n many campuses comrades in leadership positions like the executive cannot give an account on the position of women in their campuses, because most branches are still not involved as branches in the organisation of women (SANSCO, 1989: 4).

In the scheduling of activities and tasks, the organisation of women generally tended to be relegated well down the list of priorities (Interview with Mguduso, May 1995). As a result, it was legitimately contended that:

[I]n SANSCO, generally the issue of women's participation in the struggle has been reduced to the level of theoretical discussions held in regions and national gatherings with little or no effort whatsoever being put into practicalising the work on the ground (SANSCO, 1989: 4).

This is not to suggest that there were no obstacles around organising women. As SANSCO women activists learnt, the sexist and patriarchal nature of South African society was a real impediment to mobilising women. A SANSCO president also pointed out that in the context of the position of women in African communities, African women students needed "a very, very strong will" to participate in student politics (Interview with Mguduso, 1995). It would have been a case of self destruction for a female just to be kicked out of a campus and to go home.... You would be ostracised by your community in African areas because they will see you as being bad. Unlike if you are a male - you are seen as a hero, people had the type of respect of some type of a local Mandela and so on.... You carry the stigma of being a failure. Far more serious socially speaking than being a male (ibid.).

Mguduso also suggests that within African communities dangerous activities were deemed to be men's work. However, it appears that instead of challenging such notions, male activists reinforced them, for example, by sheltering women from confrontations with the police. Thus, Mguduso states that "if the police are about to chase us with dogs we would ask females not to join us... because we were scared they would get injured and so on" (ibid.). In conclusion, if there structural problems to organising women, there was also a problem of political and organisational will.

Finally, as I noted, there was much emphasis on democratic organisation and practice. In general, SANSCO was characterised by a high degree of internal democracy, with extensive participation by branches and members in the formulation of policies and organisational strategies and in the election of national and local officials. There were regular elections to office, a periodic turnover of officials, and also a generally consultative style of leadership on the part of officials. Ample scope was usually provided for discussion and debates around ideological and political issues as well as around organisational and strategic and tactical questions. As was noted, there was also considerable emphasis on a sensitive handling of students who tended to be Black Consciousness in ideas and hostile to relations with white democrats and, indeed, it was such an approach that facilitated the early 1980s growth of SANSCO on campuses.

After the mid-1980s, however, there was some constriction in internal democracy with the emergence of a measure of ideological and political intolerance within the organisation. The 1987 SANSCO congress witnessed the first formal expulsion and disciplining of members. A SANSCO newsletter referred to problems in the University of Cape Town branch, and specifically to the continued and conscious attack of SANSCO's ideological position by some members of our organisation and the conscious efforts to undo the work of the organisation. The NUSAS-SANSCO alliance has been the target of these attacks. (SANSCO National Newsletter, 1988: 5).

Following interviews with the members alleged to have attacked SANSCO, the congress decided to expel two students "since they are considered beyond redemption" and to bar another student from re-joining SANSCO. In addition, six more students "were reprimanded by Congress for their destructive activities" (ibid.). The advent of intolerance towards ideological and political questions was accompanied by a heightened intolerance towards other progressive political tendencies. At UWC, the SANSCO-dominated SRC rejected an application by the Azanian Students Movement to affiliate to the SRC on the grounds that all affiliates had to be committed to non-racialism in practice.

The change of name from AZASO to SANSCO in 1986 and the expulsion of members were connected: both represented a shift on the part by SANSCO to become more ideologically 'pure'. The indisputable hegemonic position of SANSCO on campuses, and of the Congress movement within radical anti-apartheid politics, was taken as confirmation of the 'correctness' of its ideology and politics. Thus, questions around ideological issues and the relationship with NUSAS began to be treated with intolerance. Moreover, with the concept "racial capitalism" that was previously used by SANSCO becoming associated with Black Consciousness and left-wing groups opposed to the Congress movement, there was also a greater insistence that South Africa be regarded as a "Colonialism of a Special Type", and on members employing language and terms that were consistent with that of the Congress movement.

Mguduso confirms that on occasions concepts and language used became the basis for inclusion and exclusion:

It's true there was ... a campaign, not so well organised, but everybody had to know that anybody who talks that language must be ostracised, must be sidelined and so on (Interview, 1995).

He also confirms th