Regeneration of the All-African Convention: The Background
In spite of all the forces ranged against the progress and political development of the African people, they could only succeed in retarding it. They could not crush it. With all the power of press propaganda and other means of disruption they could maim but not completely destroy the Convention, with all that it implied. What the people, with a tremendous leap of imagination had achieved under stress, could not be wiped out. The potentialities of their discovery could not be permanently frustrated.
The people had been persuaded to take a wrong turn that led them into a political desert. It is not to be supposed that they were reconciled to their oppression, nor had they lost interest in their liberation. On the contrary, the accumulation of their daily experience under the Slave Acts made their determination all the stronger when they finally began to emerge from the political desert and set foot on the new road of struggle. Those to whom they might have looked for a lead had deserted the All African Convention and were busy operating the dummy councils and advisory boards. But there were a few who kept the Convention alive with its depleted forces. They were aware of its potentialities. It was a weapon of struggle demanded by the times and sooner or later it would be forged by the force of objective conditions.
By the beginning of the forties the people were tasting to the full the bitter fruits of the Compromise. The fraud of the Land Act had become apparent to all. Land hunger was more acute than ever.
When the Land and Trust Bill had been put before ParliaÂment in 1936 the Prime Minister, General Hertzog, had made solemn assurances that millions of morgen of land were to be given to the Africans. He had said:
"We are now establishing a trust, and allow me to tell you that in the interests of the Natives as well as in the interests of the Europeans we are going to be liberal towards the Natives in the future. We can be so, because the danger in connection with the franchise has been removed."(Hansard, 1936, p. 4083).
In the same year he redoubled his assurances:
"The Government wish once more to give the assurance that it is their earnest desire to see that the obligations towards the Natives of the Union arising out of this Bill in conjunction with the Representation of Natives Act recently passed by the joint sittings of the two Houses shall be faithfully carried out, and trust that this statement will be regarded as sufficient guarantee of the same."
Seven years after these golden promises had been made, the people were suffering starvation and destitution in the Reserves as a result of land hunger. They were learning through bitter experience the real meaning of the 1936-7 Hertzog Acts. In 1943 the Minister of Native Affairs openly declared in the Senate:
"We do not buy this land for the Natives to settle down and become peasants. We buy it for the Natives to plough while they go out to work."
In the same year Mr. Gemmill, an important figure connected with the recruiting for the Chamber of Mines, in giving evidence before the Mine Wages Commission, said:
"If you pay the Native more wages, or if you give him more land, he is going to stay at home. He is not going to work on the mines."
Indeed, by this time, the Africans did not need to be told that the very crux of the matter was the insatiable demands for cheap "Native"labour which dictated the whole Native policy of the rulers. To maintain, and in fact, increase land hunger was an essential part of that policy. It had become abundantly clear to them that the promised land would never materialise.
The herrenvolk in their Parliament could not help but come out with some of the naked facts concerning African land hunger. In a debate on Native policy Senator Malcomess said:
"I go so far as to say that our whole progress and prosperity depends on Native labour."(Hansard.), In the same speech he confessed that:
"What is driving the Natives from the Reserves into the towns is hunger, want of land and the poll-tax. Forty per cent of the Reserves do not own any land."(Hansard.)
Senator Brookes plaintively announced:
"I do want to submit that the combination of not buying the promised land for the Natives in Natal and trying to get land for European settleÂment in Zululand is an absolutely unfair thing ..... We have already got a great deal of the best land in Zululand taken away from the Natives, and now to take away what is left . . . ."
Senator Vermeulen stated with brutal frankness:
"The intention was not to give land to Natives on land owned by European farmers .... Of what use would it be to remove squatters from farms and put them on land acquired by the Government? ......
I do not think that when those laws were passed the intention was that land should be acquired in order to provide accommodation for those squatters. But then the question may be asked: What must become of them? Let me say immediately that there is lots of room for those people on the farms. There is a serious shortage of labour on the farms."
Senator Basner, "Native Representative,"had to admit that:
"As we are situated at present, all our talk and all our promises of educaÂtion of the Natives and of land for the Natives is just so much talk and nothing else."
He put it to the House that: "The Government will not spend the money to improve the Reserves, because if they improve the Reserves they kill the gold mines."Then, twitting the Minister of Native Affairs who had introduced the five-morgen policy in 1943, he continued:
"The Native must not get enough land on which to become a settled Native peasant. He must get only enough land to place his family, but he must go out to work."
Even the miserable allotments to which they were limited under the five-morgen scheme were hedged in by innumerable restrictions, obligations and supervisions by"inspectors and agricultural officers from the Native Affairs Department (N.A.D.). As if the herding of Africans into these pens were not itself sufficiently outrageous, they must needs subject the people to a galling interference.
"The moment they (the agricultural officers) get on the trust farms .... they think that at last they have a farm of their own and that there are hundreds of Natives who can work for them. They get the Natives to come and cultivate their gardens and land and they treat the Native people, not as responsible people to whom the land belongs, but as their servants. The first thing they do is to make it clear to the Natives that they have the right to the farm."(Hansard.). Two further quotations will serve to illustrate the day to day experiences of the people. We feel it necessary to quote at some length because such incidents indicate very clearly the source of the rising tide of discontent which stirred the people at this time. The Land Question was at the very core of their disillusionment. Under their professed plans for the improvement of stock and the preservation of the soil for the benefit of the African people, the rulers launched a campaign to deprive the already impoverished people of their cattle-cattle which are the main source of their subsistence. In this they received the support of the so-called leaders together with the familiar "friends"of the Africans. Said Senator Malcomess:
"When the Department of Native Affairs some years ago brought forward their recommendation with regard to limitation of stock, I saw the benefits that would accrue to the Natives if they followed this policy, and I gave the Department my full support. I went down to the Reserves and I met many of the leaders and discussed with them this question very carefully. Several of these leaders, against the wishes of their followers, agreed to come in with the N.A.D. and agreed to a limitation of stock. I should like to tell the Minister that the objection of these followers to these leaders was that they were not sure what the N.A.D. would do when the Department got control. They felt that they were putting their necks in a noose and they did not know when the noose would be pulled tight . . Those Reserves that agreed to limitation of stock are very discontented to-day and there is a very bitter feeling amongst them.
I would like to give an illustration of what is happening. An inspector turns up to cull the stock. He goes through the stock of a certain Native. Unfortunately he does not look for the co-operation of that Native and he does not consult him. He simply says: That animal must be removed. If the Native protests then he is simply told he will be brought before the Court and sued. No explanations or reasons are given. The next year a different inspector comes and he culls the very stock that the other inspector passed, and so the Natives are asking me to-day whether it is an instrucÂtion from the N.A.D. to cull quantity or quality. They cannot understand the attitude of the N.A.D. I have seen a case where a Native had a type of shorthorn cow .... which gave about three quarters of a bucket of milk. That Native was told he had to get rid of that cow and he was threatened it he did not do so. What he did was he opened the gate leading into the Reserve that had not agreed to limitation. That cow is running there to-day and every night it is brought to his fence and it gives him the milk he wants for his family ... I have a case in my area where the Natives agreed to limitation of stock but where they had been cut down to three morgen and where their stock has been cut down to three head of cattle, those to consist of either 3 head of cattle, or one cow, one horse and four sheep. I want to ask the Minister how can these people plough with one cow, one horse and four sheep, and how can they possibly live?"(Hansard.) (Our emphasis.)
Yes, one might well ask how a whole peasant family depending entirely on land and stock, can live on one cow, one horse and four sheep. But that Senator Malcomess should ask the question is typical of the cynical humanitarianism of the liberal, who leads the lamb to the slaughter and at the same time commiserates with him. It is not surprising that having shed his crocodile tears, he proceeded to put forward a plea for the quislings who were assisting in putting the noose round the necks of the people, and asked that they should receive some consideration for services rendered.
"I also feel, "he said, "that the leaders of the Natives who went against the wishes of their people and agreed to limitation of stock should have the fullest support of the officials of the Department and they should be consulted in every possible way."
The second incident (from Natal) illustrates with equal force the outrageous treatment to which the people were being subjected. Senator Wessels is speaking:
"The Natives had their cattle there to be dipped and the inspector condemned them without any exception and did not approve of a single one. He immediately gave instructions to have them castrated. They immediately set to work to castrate the bulls and within a week the work was completed. Within 14 days the Natives received summonses from the inspector to the effect that they are keeping bulls which are not approved .... The Natives got a fright. Hundreds received summonses all of a sudden and all on one day. The attorneys then sent out their 'touts' among them to say that they would help the Natives. The Native thinks that he is guilty. The touts brought them together and told them that they had to pay one or two pounds for vula umnyango (to open the door) . . . Approximately 400 pounds was collected. The Natives went to court and said that they pleaded guilty. I knew nothing about it, but the injustice lies therein that the Natives were summoned some 10 days or more after the bulls were castrated and they were fined 10 pounds or 14 days' imprisonment. This is apart from 'opening the door.'"(Hansard.)
These expressions of regret are all the more nauseating in view of the fact that these so-called miscarriages of Justice were not isolated events. It is not a question of the action of this or that magistrate or the insolence of petty officials. It is much deeper and wider than that.
In a system of society where one section of the population arrogates to itself all the state power for the purpose of dominating and enslaving another section, it devises a set of laws to carry out this purpose. Through its judicial and administrative systems, its courts, its police, its various officials, it puts these laws into operation. Now every law that is passed against the subjugated people must carry with it the basic connotations of the master and servant relationship. To put it another way, the ramifications of the policy of oppression and exploitation penetrate into every aspect of life, political, economic and social. The daily application of these laws must of necessity breathe the very spirit of the basic relationship. The very attitudes and behaviour of officials are determined by the whole racial atmosphere in which they operate. The meanest and lowliest member of the "master-race "gives expression to the master-slave relaÂtionship and deems it necessary to show the slave where he belongs. His crudities and brutalities stem directly from the laws of the land, which sanctify racial oppression.
The incidents quoted above, far from being isolated cases of a miscarriage of Justice, are actually an integral part of a greater injustice, namely the oppression of a whole people. The Hertzog Acts of 1936-7 were a clear formulation of that policy. The African people were becoming aware that the Native Representation Act had been designed to rob them of their few political rights and that the Land and Trust Act, another edge to the same axe, was designed, not to give them more land, but to drive them off the land.
There were other factors which contributed to the heightenÂing of political consciousness in the people. The second World War inevitably had its repercussions in South Africa and by 1943 its effects were seen in a deepening of the general ferment throughout the country.
Every war has the effect of throwing the ordinary social and economic activities out of gear. With this, age-old ideas are shattered and long-established habits are broken. The very movement of troops, the distribution and intermingling of various peoples throughout the world contribute to the exchange of ideas and the broadening of outlook. The war slogans intended by the rulers to .mobilize the population for war are interpreted by the various sections of the population according to their station in life and their political aspirations.
In the second World War the slogans: "Fight for Freedom", "War against Fascism,"stirred the imagination of the oppressed peoples of the world. For them, the fight against Fascism did not end with the defeat of Hitlerite Germany;it meant the fight against fascism in general, abroad and at home. It meant the struggle for their own liberation against their oppressors. The fall of Singapore had a tremendous psychological effect on all the peoples of the East who had for generations groaned under the heel of British, French and Dutch Imperialists. The old myth of the invincibility of the White "master-race"was shattered.
South Africa felt deeply the repercussions of these events and their implications. At the beginning of the war the rulers had perforce to divert some of their attention from the important business of putting into effect the plans they had drawn up for the complete enslavement of the Africans. As the armies of Hitler routed the Allied powers in one theatre of war after another, the attitude of the herrenvolk towards the Non-European began to alter. They appealed to him to join the forces, and help to defend South Africa, not, however, as a combatant but as a mere menial and baggage-carrier. Then as the armies of the Axis powers over-ran Europe, rolling over the plains of France, Dunkirking the helpless English troops and threatening the very shores of England;as the Japanese tide swept through Java, swallowed Singapore, overflowed into Burma and threatened the very gates of India, the feeling of insecurity an the part of the rulers increased. When the alarm of a Japanese invasion of South Africa was sounded they were thrown into a state of consternation. The result was that the herrenvolk changed their tune towards the oppressed.
Ministers of state vied with one another in holding out promises of improved conditions for the Non-Europeans. General Smuts went so far as to say that he would arm every able-bodied Non-European male if the Japanese landed on the shores of South Africa. It was an astounding statement coming from a South African prime minister and throws a flood of light on the state of. mind of the herrenvolk at that time. It implied that the Non-Europeans were being recognised as human beings, or at least they were to be allowed to die as men, if nothing else.
But then came another shift of events, in the world arena. Japanese imperialism had taken too much at one bite, like a mamba which has swallowed a huge ox and has to lie still for a while to digest its prey. When it became evident that the Russians had decisively turned the tide of war against the Germans in Europe, the South African herrenvolk recovered their sense of security. They felt no further need to placate the Africans and the other sections of the Non-Europeans. All their promises went by the wind. Now they were ready, before even the war was over, to go full steam ahead with their Hertzogian policy against the Africans.
It is true to say that their plans were on a national scale, covering the whole front, not only of the African population but of all the Non-Europeans, i.e. the Coloured and the Indians, as well as the Africans. On the African front their schemes took one form in the "Native Reserves"to meet conditions there and they evolved what was subsequently known as the Reclamation and Rehabilitation Schemes. In the towns their schemes took another form and were called by different names, but their purpose was one and the same, namely the regimentation of African labour. In the all-embracing schemes directed to this end the Africans had to be hounded out of the "Native Reserves"while at the same time the "redundant Natives"had to be hounded out of the towns and all of them had to be driven, from whatever direction, into one inescapable channel leading to the serfdom of the White farms and the slavery of the compound system on the mines.
On the Indian front they evolved what was known as the Pegging Act, which aimed at intensifying the segregation of the Indians, limiting their trading rights, severely restricting their right to buy land, and relegating them to bazaars or ghettoes. The Coloured people also came under the fire of these comprehensive schemes. The rulers established the C.A.C. (Coloured Advisory Council) and created a special section in the Department of Social Welfare for dealing with Coloured Affairs. These two institutions were analogous to the dummy Native Representative Council and the obnoxious segregatory Native Affairs Department. This was recognised by the Coloured people as marking the first stage in the plan to disfranchise them. The next step would be to remove the Coloured voters from the common voters' roll and put them on a separate voters' roll and in this way deprive them of citizenship in the land of their birth. It was a pattern already too well known to the oppressed through the experience of the Africans in the Hertzog Acts of 1936-7. Side by side with this the rulers put forward their Housing Schemes which the Coloured people recognised as yet another aspect of the Segregation policy identical with the Location system for the Africans and the bazaars (ghettoes) for Indians.
The Spirit of Resurgence
With the end of war in sight, the herrenvolk, strong in their sense of security, proceeded with their plans In respect of the Non-Europeans on the assumption that they could establish the old master and servant relationship. It did not seem to occur to them that a war had intervened-a war which had a revolutionising effect on established ideas and habits of mind amongst all the oppressed throughout the world. The Non- Europeans in South Africa, too, were no longer prepared to accept the old relationship. Their hopes had been aroused by the slogans: Fight for the overthrow of Fascism! Fight for Freedom! Many of them had risked their lives in the war. When, therefore, the Atlantic Charter was noised abroad with its grandiloquent promises of a New Order giving social security and freedom, the Non-Europeans naturally expected that they, too, were included. But, far from any of their hopes being fulÂfilled, they were already having a bitter foretaste of what this "New Order"was to mean for the oppressed.
Faced with the various oppressive schemes, which, as already indicated, were on a nation-wide front affecting all sections, the Non-Europeans determined to fight back. The Coloured people replied to the segregatory measure, the C.A.C. (Coloured Advisory Council) by forming the National Anti-C.A.D., a federal body uniting the existing Coloured organisations throughout the country, similar to the All African Convention. It was formed for the purpose of resisting the new measure, but at the same time it resolved to launch a struggle for full democratic rights. It swiftly gathered the Coloured people together and boycotted the Coloured Advisory Council as an institution. Those individuals who had accepted positions on it were thrown out of all the people's organisations to which they belonged.
The intensive campaign against the new measures, the holding of meetings and the dissemination of pamphlets all led to a rapid heightening of political consciousness. Every move of the rulers was exposed. Every day brought its political lessons. The government-imposed C.A.C. was rendered helpless and paralysed in face of the resistance of the people. But that was not all. Their struggle against this particular measure brought home to them the fundamental nature of their oppression. They realised that their fate was indissolubly bound up with that of the other sections of the oppressed, the Africans and the Indians. The defeat of African resistance In 1936-7 had opened the way for the move against them. They were beginning to understand that the battle of the African is the battle of all Non-Europeans in South Africa, that an attack on one section is an attack on all, and that the freedom of each is bound up with the freedom of all. With this new outlook on their struggles the Coloured people demonstrated an unprecedented determination to resist. The Anti-C.A.D. grew by leaps and bounds throughout the country.
The Indians, too, launched a campaign against the Pegging Act. But their campaign took a different form. The South African Indian Congress, under the leadership of the Indian merchant class, followed a course of action which revealed a basic difference in outlook between their organisation and the federal organisations representative of the Coloured people and the Africans, namely, the Anti-C.A.D. and the All African Convention respectively. Although the Indians realised that they, like the rest of the Non-Europeans, were oppressed and though their leaders, too, mooted the idea of coming together with the other sections of the Non-Europeans, yet their approach to the problem differed in certain important respects. Although they spoke the same language-the language of unity-they did not in fact identify themselves with the rest of the Non-Europeans. This was because the interests of the merchant class, which comprised the leadership, were not identical with the rest of the oppressed including the Indian masses. Moreover, this section clung tenaciously to the idea that they were Indian nationals and looked to "Mother India"for assistance in their plight. This double allegiance, together with their economic interests, dictated their whole approach to the method of struggle and thence to unity. They thought in terms of negotiation with the Government rather than of principled struggle, in terms of appeals to U.N.O. and deputations to "Mother India"rather than a determined resistance together with their brother oppressed. For them the unity of Non-Europeans was to be used as a means of threatenÂing the South African Government with a view to obtaining concessions for the Indian merchant class.
It must be said here that while the oppressed people were able in retrospect to understand the intentions and designs of the Indian merchant-class leadership, it was not at that time apparent to them that their whole approach to the struggle was different. There was indeed a cry for unity from all sides, from the Indian workers and poor peasants as well as the rest of the Non-Europeans. The Indian leaders had to give expression to this call for unity in order to retain the confidence of the masses. Thus, in the Conference of the South African Indian Congress in June, 1943, they introduced a perfunctory resolution:
"It is the considered opinion that the time has come for the Indian comÂmunity of South Africa to make common cause politically, educationally and economically with all other Non-European peoples of South Africa . . . ."
Time was still to reveal what the real "considered opinion of the Indian merchant class was.
On the African front the 1943 - 44 period was to mark the turning point in the struggles of the people. Their accumulated disillusionment made them ripe for a new development. Once mere there was a ferment amongst the masses and the spirit of resurgence communicated itself to the All African Convention.
In June, 1943, the Western Province Committee of the All African Convention issued a leaflet, "Calling All Africans,"which was a rallying cry to the African people and clearly reflects the altered mood of the oppressed. Its keynote was the unity of all Non-Europeans. Pointing out that the world crisis resulted in South Africa in an unleashing of oppressive measures against all Non-Europeans simultaneously, it said:
"There is a clamour for unity .... There is a great desire amongst all sections of the Non-Europeans to forge a weapon not only for political defence but for attack. There is a determination not only to defend ourÂselves but to launch a struggle for full democratic rights .... It is obvious that the different Non-European groups have now realised the need for unity-unity not only within their respective groups, but of all Non-European groups. The present-day conditions demand such unity. It is not a thing that comes from the air. The desire for unity comes from the realisation that our physical differences, our colour differences, our cultural differences have nothing to do with our economic and political position. There is one fundamental factor common to us all and that is oppression. Our coming together, therefore, is not a question of the will of this or that individual, this or that section. Our unity is determined by our very position in the social structure of South African society. It is the objective conditions which determine and demand this unity and our conÂscious desire for it arises from our recognition of this fundamental fact."
The leaflet went on to emphasise that:
"All our forces should be concentrated on making this unity a reality. That is the great task for Convention. The realisation of this unity would be a milestone in the history of the Non-Europeans in South Africa."
Pointing out that what was required was a purposeful and dynamic unity, a unity which should be a means to an end, it continued:
"Convention will be called upon to devise ways and means of making this unity a living fact by carrying it to the people, the workers and peasants, most of whom are illiterate. The movement must find its roots among the people. And this is possible only if Convention takes up the problems which are now agitating the people, problems that are becoming every day more acute."
The stirring quality of this leaflet sent out by the Western Province Committee of the All African Convention reflected the hardening temper of the people as well as a new consciousness of their tasks. Shortly afterwards, on August 26, 1943, a special meeting of the Executive Committee of the All African ConvenÂtion was convened in Bloemfontein. At this meeting it was decided to issue a Manifesto: "The Clarion Call-A Call To Unity."It was a frank statement openly admitting past mistakes and failures and calling upon all Africans to embark on a new road of struggle. This Manifesto ushered in a new period of regeneration for the All African Convention. We reprint it in full in the next chapter.