Some did so more easily than others. Few, if any, managed to move beyond the general notion of equality under African leadership – exactly the approach of all post-1994 governments. That remains a partial, under-developed and ham-fisted interpretation of what non-racialism could, and should, mean.
Whites were members of the Communist and Liberal parties and SACOD; well-known anti-apartheid whites also tried to join the ANC (Ronald Segal) and PAC (Patrick Duncan, who had previously tried to join the ANC), while others (particularly those on the far left) maintained an ongoing critical commentary on the follies of nationalism and of racially discrete congresses.
This latter group were proponents of an immediate class struggle, rather than a class struggle to be initiated after the national liberation struggle had been executed successfully. They are arguably as marginal in the post-apartheid political discourse as they were during the struggle years – even as their predictions seem to be coming true, and ANC leaders defend instant wealth because ‘we did not struggle to remain poor’.10
The ANC’s dominance within the tripartite alliance (which includes the SACP and the Congress of South African Trade Unions – COSATU – alongside the ANC) has become increasingly pronounced in the post-apartheid era, during which it has formed successive governments, and, while there is contestation over the number and depth of redistributive measures and the growth path chosen by the ANC, the adherents of class struggle seem as few and as disparate as they were sixty years ago. The warnings issued then – that class struggle would be postponed indefinitely by a national bourgeoisie anxious to maximise personal wealth and advancement at the expense of the urban and rural poor – are repeated, though with less ‘we told you so’ than might have been expected, suggesting that history does indeed need to be revisited and its lessons relearned.
During the 2009 general election campaign, some media attention was given to arguments – some from within or close to the ruling party, others from more predictable economic sectors and their think-tanks – that affirmative action and black economic empowerment – the two premier vehicles for acheiving either redistribution or an instant national bourgeoisie, depending on your viewpoint – should be done away with, since they were harming the economy. But the lesson has been learned the hard way: race classification linked to economic advancement has utilitarian, political and vote-catching value. It would be a harsh historical irony if arguments about the economic irrationality of race classification linked to job reservation and redistribution were to find purchase in the ANC, the party that (with the SACP) so strongly argued that capitalism and apartheid were mutually functional and rejected all arguments to the contrary as gutless liberalism.
The ANC conference in Polokwane in December 2007, which saw the demise of the Thabo Mbeki era, heralded much change. At the time of writing, it is impossible to know if this will translate into substance. Post-Polokwane, the ANC and government speak more forcefully about redistribution and pro-poor growth. The tetchy impatience with (real or perceived) colonial stereotyping that marked the Mbeki era seems to be declining, and hopefully this decline will be accompanied by more open-mindedness to debate and discussion about race, identity, and non-racialism. That such a discussion is urgently needed was made clear by the murderous xenophobic violence of May 2008 and the ethnic undertones of the ANC–Congress of the People (COPE) election battle in 2009.
The current generation of political leaders – and many of their voters – were all affected by apartheid, and may have a race-bred consciousness that will never entirely fade away. But the next generation – those born long after apartheid’s demise – deserve so much better. Our challenge is to find the courage to break decisively with the past, the mindsets and the identities it created for and ascribed to us all, and enter a new discursive space where it is, indeed, enough merely to be.
A note on methodology
This book began life as a doctoral thesis, written in the 1980s. The research focused heavily on secondary materials, including existing collections belonging to individuals and organisations, as well as private papers made available to me by many activists of the time (most of which I managed to archive in various university libraries in South Africa and the United Kingdom). I also conducted a series of interviews (listed in the references) with activists from the period.
In the 1990s, however, everything changed: the ANC was unbanned, Mandela released, apartheid crumbled with a whimper, democracy was ushered in and a new South Africa was born. Of course, a great deal did not change – precisely the reason for returning to this topic, where non-racialism remains undefined and racial classification and race-based thinking remain pervasive after fifteen years of ANC rule.
Rewriting the thesis as a book has allowed me the opportunity to introduce new material, primarily from the biographies of many key actors from the period (see the Reference section). But it should be clearly stated that I did not embark on a second round of qualitative research; that the respondents who were interviewed were overwhelmingly white activists from the 1950s, and more black respondents might have provided differing perspectives; and that the book does not attempt to engage with current discourses around race, identity and related topics. How damaging these factors are to the overall thrust of the book is left to the reader to decide.
This is a history book. It tries to tell the story of a remarkably talented, courageous and visionary generation of activists, of all races, and the ways in which they dreamed up a possible future for South Africa. It is the task of those of us fortunate enough to live in ‘the new South Africa’ to see whether or not we measure up to the standards they set and change accordingly – in areas such as self-sacrifice, service, bravery, camaraderie – in essence, full and active citizenship. Above all, South Africa carries global expectations, as the ‘miracle’ of the 1990s, that we can and will give meaning to non-racialism, and create a society that truly belongs to all who live in it, black and white.
Chapter 1
Whites and the ANC, 1945–1950
The 1940s saw the rise of nationalist and anti-colonial movements across what we now know as the developing world, including South Africa. In the same decade the African National Congress (ANC) was transformed from a small elite body using courteous and constitutional forms of protest into an extra-parliamentary organisation attempting mass-based mobilisation of all unenfranchised groups in South Africa, and working alongside whites and others committed to non-racialism. In 1947 the ANC entered into an alliance with the South African Indian Congress (SAIC), which was joined in September 1953 by the South African Coloured People’s Organisation (SACPO), followed a month later by the white South African Congress of Democrats (SACOD).
In 1956 the Congress Alliance endorsed the Freedom Charter (drawn up the year before), a statement of principle that envisaged a future South Africa based on full equality for all people of all races. The principle that came to guide the ANC – remarkably, given the exigencies of white rule in the guises of both segregation and (after 1948) apartheid – was its commitment to a non-racial future. How did this come about? Why, in the midst of a race-based society, did the ANC espouse a racially inclusive vision rather than an exclusive African nationalism?
The integration of all races in a struggle against the race-based ideology of apartheid, and behind a national liberation struggle led by the ANC, was difficult. The incorporation of whites in the struggle against white supremacy was particularly difficult. This chapter analyses the roots of non-racialism in the post-war years by reviewing the rise of the Congress movement after the Second World War and the