Number 19, August 2003
Feature Theme. Legacy of the UDF
20 YEARS SINCE THE LAUNCH OF THE UNITED DEMOCRATIC FRONT
A Great victory! - President OR Tambo
The origins and significance of the UDF - Revd Frank Chikane
The UDF and the Struggle for National Democracy - Steve Tshwete
Participatory democracy: the legacy of the UDF in the Eastern Cape - Mkhuseli
Jack and Janet Cherry
Young lions rise - the birth of SAYCO
Unions and the UDF
- Extracts from interviews with Sydney Mufamadi, Dave Lewis and Siza Njikelana.
- SACTU welcomes COSATU
- COSATU on the United Front
AZASO and COSAS inspire Education Charter Campaign
Unity of the democratic forces. The Vaal stayaway - Jean Middleton
NUSAS and the UDF - Kate Philip and Brendan Barry
UDF unites, reflections from the white areas - Graeme Bloch
UDF discussion documents
- Why we organise
- The errors of populism
- Errors of workerism
The UDF and township revolt - Mark Swilling
DEBATING THE ISSUES
Teaching religion or teaching religions - Rev. Mayson
South Africa: Paradise with earthly problems - Vyacheslav Tetekin
National Youth Service: Addressing the challenge of youth unemployment - Carmel
Marock
Foxing the miniature - Phumla Mnganga
Participatory democracy and the Budget - Joan Fubbs
Quarantine and feel sorry for these GMOs - Prof PDS Stewart
UMRABULO POLITICAL EDUCATION SERIES
Introduction to the series
Part 1: Understanding basic economics - [PDF]
READERS FORUM
Does our transition have any timeframes - Monde Keke
Building a new cadre - Nathi Mthethwa
Debate on the Motive forces - Amie S. Molelekwa
THEY FOUGHT FOR FREEDOM
Women stand together: the life of Dora Tamana
BOOK REVIEWS
History of the UDF - Jeremy Seekings
Sunset at Midday. Latshon' ilang' emini! - Govan Mbeki
My Spirit is not banned - Frances Baard
On 20 August 1983, thousands of activists and community leaders from across the country gathered at Rocklands Civic Centre in Mitchell's Plain to launch the United Democratic Front. They represented civics, youth, students, women, unions, religious, professional and a range of other organisations -united by a common opposition to apartheid. In the eight years of its existence (1983-1991), the UDF gave form and coherence to struggles ranging from the most local of issues, to broad national political demands for the unbanning of the ANC, release of political prisoners and an end to apartheid.
The front character enabled it to unite the broadest range of forces, as it deepened the pillar of internal mass mobilisation. This tactic of broadening the front of struggle whilst at the same time deepening struggle has been used consistently throughout the history of our movement. The late cde Steve Tshwete recalls examples of this tactic - referring to the Alexandra Bus Boycott of 19 and to the Congress Alliance of the 1950's.
Key to the success of any broad front is the identification of issues that can unite in action the broadest spectrum of forces from amongst the people. Another factor is ongoing political work by the most conscious elements within the various organisations and sectors that make up the front. The conditions for the formation of a front were ripe in 1983. Valli Moosa, a then executive member of the UDF, quoted in Sunset at Midnight by Govan Mbeki asserted: "if you were opposed to the Tricameral parliament, to Black Local Authorities and the Bantustan system, if you thought apartheid was bad and it needed to go, then you could join the UDF."
More importantly, following the 1976 uprising and its subsequent repression by the apartheid regime, the ANC had an important strategic review in 1978/79 where it resolved to help organise and give guidance to mass organisations amongst all sections of the people. "Given that the apartheid regime sought to divide and narrow the support base of the national liberation movement", argued Govan Mbeki (op. cit.), "a wide ranging popular front had to be created. Each and every expression of opposition to the regime had, therefore, to be embraced as part of the movement's common purpose.'
This was reflected in the more than 700 organisations that affiliated to the UDF during its first year. And as the struggle on all fronts intensified, more and more local and sectoral organisations were formed and joined the UDF. Local sectoral organisations united to form national sectoral organisations - most importantly the South African Youth Congress (launched in 1987), various national professional organisations and less successfully the UDF Women's Congress (UDFCO). Although many trade unions did not affiliate to the UDF, after the formation of COSATU in 1985, a strong working relationship in action developed between the UDF and the trade union movement.
Amongst the most important lessons from the short existence of the UDF, is therefore the need to at all times build the unity of our people -whether it is to defeat apartheid, or to transform our country and create a better life for all.
As we salute the millions of our people who united behind the UDF, especially those who paid the ultimate price, we should as we enter the Second Decade of Freedom, unite our people to decisively eradicate the legacy of colonialism, racism, sexism and apartheid.
Interview with President O.R. Tambo on the current situation in South Africa and Southern Africa in General Mayibuye Number 10 & 11. 1984
Question: At the end of August the apartheid regime conducted its elections to the Coloured and Indian parliaments. The whole exercise turned out to be a farce, rejected by the majority of these communities and by the rest of the oppressed and democratic forces. How do you view the role of the ANC in bringing about this victory?
Tambo: The vanguard movement is on alert all the time, watching and following the manoeuvre of the enemy. We lost no time in alerting our people on what was happening with the President's Council and all those schemes. We called for action to resist all this. We called for mobilisation of our entire forces. We called for united action, 1982 and 1983. It was necessary that we should meet this new offensive by the enemy as a united democratic force. Nothing else would help.
I think our people responded remarkably to this call. The emergence of the UDF was exactly what we were talking about during the year of Unity in Action, 1982. It was what we envisaged in our call in 1983 for United Action. We had called for confrontation with the enemy on all fronts, by all our people in their various organisational formations. The response to this call was the emergence of the UDF.
Early this year, facing the prospect of 'elections' in August, we called on our people to boycott those polling booths, to stand firmly united as an opposition to the oppressive system of apartheid. We called on the youth, the women, the workers, our young armed cadres to rise and face this bold attempt by the enemy to dig in. And there was a response, a remarkable response to this.
Question: In response, the regime has not only unleashed its police but has also called in the army in an attempt to suppress the mounting township revolt. It has also taken a number of measurers to paralyse the UDF and the rest of the legal democratic movement. The regime says one of the reasons why it is taking action against the UDF leadership is that the UDF is a front of the ANC. Now if we say that the emergence of the UDF and present day mass upsurge is a result of organisation and mobilisation by the ANC, does it follow that the UDF is a creation of the ANC?
Tambo: NO! NO! It does not follow, because the ANC has for a long time now, even since it was banned, actually called on the people to organise themselves: any organisation, even where it differed with the ANC, provided only it was oriented against the apartheid system, we supported it. So we have encouraged the formation of organisations. These 700 organisations that belong to the UDF were not created by the ANC. But the ANC has called on the people to organise themselves, whether they organise themselves into ping-pong clubs or whatever it is, but we said, organise and direct your attention and activity to freeing yourselves so that you become human beings and citizens of your own country, which you are not!
By Revd Frank Chikane
[Former Vice President of the United Democratic Front (UDF), former General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches (SACC) and currently a member of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the African National Congress (ANC)].
The launch of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in August 1983 came as a direct result of a strategic decision by the liberation movement to intensify the levels of mass resistance inside the country. This was one pillar of a four-prong strategy to finally bring the apartheid regime to its knees, the other pillars being the armed struggle, and sanctions and the mobilization of the international community against the apartheid regime, and the development of the internal political underground.
As the armed struggle was escalated and the international campaign to isolate the regime gathered steam, the need for greater internal resistance became more and more urgent, although any link between the UDF and the ANC had to be publicly denied for security reasons.
The immediate objectives of the UDF were to pressurize the apartheid regime to release the leadership of the people from prison, to unban liberation movements and people's organizations, allow South African exiles to return home, and to start meaningful negotiations to establish a free, non-racial, non-sexist democratic society.
The genesis of the UDF was a call by the ANC in exile (O.R. Tambo) for all South Africans to form a united front to resist the regime which was becoming more repressive and brutal by the day in the run-up to the implementation of a new bogus Tri-cameral Parliament under a new South African constitution. In 1982, cadres of the movement within the country held quiet discussions and made secret preparations. In January 1983 the internal movement made the public call for the formation of a united democratic front to resist the new 1983 apartheid constitution.
Yet the story goes back a little further. While the second wave of bannings of people's organizations in 1977 forced many activists to go underground, it also created new conditions for the development and growth of many grassroots organizations and community groups. The early 1980's also saw the growth of the labour movement, which together with community groups ultimately formed the base of the UDF when it was formed. While women, youth and students organizations formed the larger part of the front, the UDF was positioned so that many professional, religious and business organizations would also feel comfortable within a 'broad family' united around specific aims.
The strategy of the "broad united front" was adopted because of its potential to unite the overwhelming majority of South Africans around the common objective of eliminating the apartheid system, whilst the membership of professional organizations, business associations and religious groupings, afforded the Front a certain level of security for activists to carry out their responsibilities.
After the launch, the UDF grew by leaps and bounds, with community and developmental organizations from far and near heeding the call to unite against the repressive machinery of the apartheid system. Many braved arrests, torture and even death as they joined together to advance the course of liberation. To this day I am amazed at how groups just appeared in UDF T-Shirts to claim membership of the UDF. When questioned, they simply replied that they were responding to the call by OR Tambo or the leadership in the country. Of course this posed a security risk, but this risk was unavoidable in a mass-based organization under the conditions of the day.
At the same time, the exponential growth of the UDF meant that by 1984 the seemingly invincible security police could not effectively monitor activities of the UDF any longer. At its height the vast membership of the UDF meant that meetings were being held every hour of every day throughout the country. Monitoring all these meetings was simply impossible for the security apparatus. This much was pathetically evident in our Treason Trial in Pietermaritzburg in 1985 where the prosecution relied solely on video and tape recordings of meetings rather than intelligence for their evidence. Thus their accusation that twelve of the sixteen UDF trialists were part of the ANC underground could not be substantiated. In the end, the State could simply not make the charges stick and the case collapsed, with all of us walking free!
Brutal repression gave impetus to the establishment of proper operational mechanisms for the organization. The so-called "M Plan" - originally devised by Mandela in the 1940s - took on a new meaning with the creation of street and block committees in townships and suburbs across the country. In many ways this system represents the best expression of participatory democracy and served as the most effective communications mechanism at the time when the repressive machinery of the regime was at its worst.
As the state became more repressive, the churches became a place of refuge for the movement, offering facilities for meetings, places for hiding and care services for the displaced. At other times the church made available secret locations for those who were being hunted by the security police. When the publication of detentions and the naming of detainees were criminalized, the churches used moments of prayer to announce the names of detainees and those who had disappeared. And when calling protest marches was criminalized, the religious sector organized marches at which the leadership of the people were protected by the multitudes surrounding them.
The implementation of the 1983 constitution, designed to consolidate the apartheid system, and imposed against the will of the people in 1984, forced the UDF to move beyond just protest. The masses were mobilized to resist being governed by a regime based on a constitution they had rejected. The black townships terminated their relationship with the local government administrations and all institutions of the state, including Police Stations. They stopped paying rentals and service charges (water, refuse removal and electricity) to the local administrations. Those who had housing bonds with the Black Administration Boards stopped paying their monthly installments. This action spilled over to bonds held with private banks. To some extend, people also stopped paying other national taxes. A rousing slogan at the time was: "no cooperation with the oppressor" reflecting a determination to refuse to be governed by an illegitimate regime.
As the notion of 'ungovernability' took root and the regime lost control of the townships, cadres of the movement worked hard at creating alternative centres of power which further undermined the authority of the regime. Street and block committees and other people's structures like defence committees and 'people's courts' began to assume the roles of an alternative authority to the regime. To a large extent it was these actions which finally proved to the regime the futility of defending apartheid and forced it to the negotiating table.
Looking back, the UDF taught all of us very profound lessons in leadership. In the first instance, the leadership of the UDF always saw themselves as the interim leaders of the movement in the context of the banning of the peoples' organizations and the imprisonment of our leaders. We saw ourselves very much as "holding the fort" for the leadership in jail or in exile. Within the UDF, leaders were collectively deployed to serve in leadership capacities. At the same time, UDF leadership was a consultative process. Extensive consultative meetings were held with those who were not in formal structures before formal leadership meetings were held and decisions were taken on the basis of consensus of the leadership both in and outside the formal structures of the UDF.
When we finally did get an opportunity to interact with the leadership of the movement outside the country, we discovered that the leadership also operated on the basis that it was an interim leadership waiting for the release of our imprisoned leaders. Yet when I finally met Utata UMadiba at Victor Verster Prison on the eve of his release, he in turn talked of the leadership as those outside prison and those in exile!
It is to our credit that the quality of our leaders was such that they deferred to other sectors of leadership of the movement as a whole rather than pursuit sectarian or sectionalist interests.
After the unbanning of the liberation movements and the release of our leaders from prison in 1990 there was therefore no question about the need to re-align our mass organizations and its leadership: the UDF was dissolved and we reverted once again to consolidated leadership under the banner of one revolutionary movement banned in 1960.
The United Democratic Front was indeed a holding operation, albeit a very important one!
By Steve Tshwete, elected as the Border UDF President in 1983 (Abridged)
The UDF as a Front
From the outset, I want to dispel some silly notions in the heads of leading members of the ruling clique and their henchmen on the nature and role of the United Democratic Front in the struggle for national liberation.
We are a front organisation. No apologies. Like any other front elsewhere in the world, we are a mouth-piece of a number of organisations whose short and long term aspirations are given expression and authenticated in the unity in action which we along, at this point in time, can effectively forge. The organisations we represent are all lawful and operate within the four corners of this country.
Not a single one of those organisations has descended, ready-made, from outer space upon the democratic and peace-loving people of South Africa. On the contrary, these organisations are the direct product of the objective reality in a country that has gone strange to democracy.
Though we cannot boast of any ideological homogeneity as a front, the organisations at our command are nonetheless committed to the ideal of a united, free, democratic and non-racial South Africa, in which the will of the people, not the will of a clique, shall bear sway. That is the primary thrust of the UDF.
It is not the first time that resistance to the apartheid regime has brought together different organisations of diverse political persuasions to take a common stand against it. In 1936, for instance, the then South African National Native Congress extended an invitation to all organisations and individuals of the oppressed to attend a convention in Bloemfontein, and there to adopt a common position against the notorious Hertzog Bills. It was a popular indaba, comprising of political, cultural, religious and sports organisations of the oppressed and exploited masses.
It might have not been destined to take on a permanent form, but it certainly did prove one point of particular significance to the UDF: that there is always room for the oppressed and fighting democrats to pool their individual efforts. Points of difference are not overriding. We can always submerge these and project those aspects which bring us together. Over the passage of time, with persuasion and discussion, the edges may become blunted, suspicions dissipated and unity achieved.
And the best workshop where such unity can be hammered is in the field of action. As long as we agree to resist and work together to attain certain immediate goals, so long will the possibility of ultimate unity be ascertained.
I want to single out the Alexandra bus boycott - one of the longest and bitterest in living memory. Without clogging you with much detail, the outstanding achievement in so far as this campaign was concerned is the fact that, perhaps for the first time in the history of the liberation struggle, we witnessed spontaneous expression of solidarity, in particular by the Indian community in Johannesburg, with the people of Alexandra. We are told that some members of the Indian community would wake up early in the morning, walk the long distance from Fordsburg to Alexandra to catch up with the throng of marching commuters. The process would be repeated in the evenings.
What is of relevance to us in this example is the fact that this expression of solidarity was not as a result of a resolution by the South African Indian Congress. On the contrary, the response must be seen as a product of the objective reality in South Africa at a time when popular slogans of Afrikanerdom were: "Kaffir op sy plek" and "Koelie uit die land." In the circumstances "Kaffir" and "Koelie" had enough cause to come together against the common enemy in spite of whatever other differences might have been between the two.
And of importance again is the fact that that the unity of the two was not wrenched in a conference room, but it was forged in the theatre of a practical struggle. When the doctors Xuma and Dadoo came together in 1946 as leaders respectively of the ANC and the Indian Congress to inaugurate the Congress Alliance in the name of the Dadoo-Xuma Pact, they were merely giving formal endorsement of an idea already clinched at mass level.
This Pact was in a very realistic sense a front. It was designed to coordinate and direct campaigns. The two communities (African and Indian) could speak with one voice and march forward in one step. In due course, and again as a result of the fascist bent in South Africa after the seizure of power by the Malan clique, the 1946 front was enlarged immediately after the 1952 Defiance campaign to comprise such organisations as the Congress of Democrats, and the Coloured Peoples Congress. This was formed the Congress Alliance. In 1954 the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) was to be the fifth member.
The most significant difference between this front and the UDF is the fact that all affiliate organisations, SACTU excepted, were political organisations with one ideological persuasion. That is not the case with the UDF. That, of course, does not mean that the Congress Alliance did not have problems. They were there and some of them hand an ethnic tinge. But these problems could and were surmounted - and not by confrontation and abuse. Consultation and constant consultation, discussion and persuasion formed the open sesame.
For it is important, comrades, to understand that differences between the people cannot and should not be solved in any other way. Of course we need to distinguish here between healthy and unhealthy differences. The former are genuine and struggle-orientated, while the latter are a product of self-centeredness, reaction and mischief-making and carry all the attributes of a clique. As a matter of principle we do not waste our time and sacrifice progress once this reactionary trend has been identified. It is precisely on that score that the Leballo clique had to be dealt with the contempt they deserved at the Congress of the People in 1956.
One other difference between the UDF and the Congress Alliance consisted of in the fact that the latter had a spearhead in the name of the ANC, whereas the UDF cannot boast of such a fact. This is a glaring omission.
We should briefly look at other front organisations elsewhere in the world to follow the argument of a spearhead! Lets take the National Liberation Front in Vietnam. It was a tremendously huge alliance of all political, cultural and religious persuasions. Normally it would be difficult to bring these groupings together for a sustained period of time in the absence of the common enemy - the French and later American imperialism. But the Lao Dong party not only brought them together, but also served as spearhead -the pace setter of long term objectives. In that position it understood that the Buddhist, for instance, would not go beyond the expulsion of imperialism and the establishment of a people's democracy.
Similarly with the Patriotic/Partisan Fronts in Eastern Europe during Hitler's occupation of the continent. The various communist parties in these countries served as spearheads of extremely broad fronts; some affiliates of which had no sympathies at all with issues like the dictatorship of the proletariat! And significantly for all for us, the Marxist parties in all these fronts did not project their own programmes over and above those of affiliates.
Whilst the working class position had to be strengthened, it was observed that in a compromise position like a front, tact and skill must take precedence. You don't denounce that other wing as bourgeoisie and retrograde. You don't not call that one a lackey of so and so and dub that one as a centre-piece of progress and beauty of the front. You must just understand his weaknesses and shortcomings. Once you discover the distance he is prepared to travel in the long march to a People's Day of South Africa, it is becomes your responsibility to persuade him to take another short mile with you. It is persuasion all the way. The successes of the Congress Alliance and other similar front organisations the world over can be attributed to this essential understanding of the compromise nature of a front.
Democracy within the Front
I have designated a front organisation as a compromise organisation.
That implies a give and take situation. Don't be over-exerting and over-demanding.
Allow a certain measure of flexibility within the broad framework of our policy.
As an executive committee we should be able to take decision and formulate policy. At no single point in time should we ever address ourselves to affiliates without a particular bias on any given issue. This is important and allows you the privilege of influencing the course of events. It is a privilege position, because the perspective any executive will always be wider than that of affiliates who necessarily must be able to see only as far as their limited affiliates horizon.
Once you have communicated your view to your affiliates, you must not entertain ideas that it is gospel. The affiliates must discuss your viewpoint, criticise it, reject it or endorse it. In turn their own standpoint is transmitted to the executive, which in turn, after determining the most popular viewpoint go back to the affiliates and acquaint them with the latest detail.
No matter how strongly one felt about one's particular point of view, once a popular decision has been struck it becomes binding on all affiliates. No dissent will be allowed. Otherwise if one continues to cling to one's standpoint against the majority view and continues to canvas the defeated position, then one is operating as a clique and obstructing action and progress. This tendency must be exposed to all affiliates in a political analysis which must underline the destructive nature in a people's front, and within the affiliate organisations' themselves.
At the same time no organisation must use its popularity and unilaterally decide on a campaign without consultation with the most relevant organisation in relation to the campaign. To illustrate: COSAS cannot unilaterally decide on a stay-away without prior consultations with the sister labour unions, nor can any trade union unilaterally call upon students to boycott classes. Mistakes of this nature are bound to rock the front and cause disunity. We must not undermine the leadership of the diverse organisations at our command if we seek to advance revolutionary work.
Transformation of the UDF
Recently, ideas have been flung that the UDF in the post-Koornhof and tricameral situation must be transformed into a political party. My own persuasion in this regard is that necessity is forced upon us by the dictates of objective conditions then we have no alternative but to do so. But, I want to believe that at the moment such a move could only spell danger for the good work that has been done and the lot that remains to be accomplished in the foreseeable future.
The advantage of the present poise is that we are in a position to command vast influence among the broad masses of our people by reason of organisational membership. In the current year, thanks to the Million Signature Campaign and the anti-election campaign, we have traversed even those areas where politics was a strange concept. We have been able to temper our people in the urban and platteland areas in a manner that has no parallel in history. Through affiliate organisations the UDF became a household word. In that manner we had taken our struggle to almost every home and thereby projected the mass nature of our cause. It would have been difficult to score these resounding victories had we been constituted otherwise.
The task that lies ahead is quite momentous: we have to reach those thousands of our people wherever they are, appeal to them not as individuals but as organisations. In the Karoo, Northern Transvaal and the OFS effective UDF presence can only be made when the popular organisations that were set up during the anti-election campaign are consolidated and given direction, the rallying point at all material times being the conditions under which the people find themselves on a day to day basis. So that insofar as the future of the Front is concerned, my feeling is that we maintain the front nature and broaden our scope of activity.
The anti-elections campaign has enhanced the prestige of the UDF. The (apartheid) government and its puppets were on the run, as they always must as long as they remain strange to the truth. The clampdown on the UDF leadership and the brutal shooting of our people on the Rand and Vaal Triangle are an expression of frustration and impotence. At the same time it has been amply demonstrated that no force on earth can conquer the combined mass action of the oppressed and fighting people of South Africa. Even on the international plain our position has been tremendously enhanced by the success of the campaign, whilst the racist government has become more of a skunk.
But this does not mean we should be victory drunk. It means more work, more mobilisation and more vigilance against opportunists who may seek to climb on the crest of the present wave of anger.
The UDF and the Freedom Charter
Comrades, I cannot see how any organisation can be in a position to come up with a better set of demands than those enshrined in this ever-green document. At the same time, any attempt to formulate a watered-down version of those demands is certainly a sell-out position in the context of the present struggle.
The people of South Africa have gone a long way to reach the Kliptown. For us to shun these demands would be outright reconciliation with the status quo and imperialism. I agree that Le Grange linkage cause would be strengthened, but we know and everybody in his right sense knows that the Freedom Charter is and was never an ANC document. The ANC had its own documents like the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and African Claims.
The Freedom Charter belongs to the people of South Africa and at this point in our struggle there is no reason why we should not adopt it as an alternative to the racist constitution. Everyone of those ten points can be used to rally our people anywhere in South Africa. It has been haled throughout Africa as a realistic document. The progressive international mankind applauded it at various forums as an ideal alternative. Nelson Mandela and Anderson remained fascinated with it right up to now.
The masses have coined moving songs out of every one of the ten points in the Freedom Charter. The masses of our people love it and need to know it deeper. Those of our affiliates who still entertain aversion against it, need to be educated about it in a persuasive and tactical manner.
To sum up: Long live UDF. Long live our Presidents. A Thousand years Mandela. Amandla!
By Mkhuseli Jack and Janet Cherry
It is tempting to idealize the days of struggle, and to remember uncritically our heroes and our organizations; to present MK, for example, as the 'glorious peoples' army' and to forget the frustrations endured and the mistakes made. Similarly, it is tempting to remember the UDF as a militant, mass-based front of organizations which made a decisive contribution to the ending of apartheid and the creation of a democratic society. The moments of terror and intolerance are easily forgotten. And yet, perhaps it is time for us to reflect critically - on this twentieth anniversary of the founding of the UDF - on the lessons we learnt through our experience of organization in the 1980s.
The African townships of the Eastern Cape had already built something of a tradition of close-knit, mass-based structures by the time the UDF was formed in 1983. Some argue that this tradition went back to the late 1950's, early 1960 period, when the 'M-Plan' was implemented in New Brighton to ensure that the ANC survived the banning of public meetings. Others point to the importance of such street-level structures in enabling the ANC to survive after its banning in1960, and during the time of the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe and the first sabotage campaigns, in the 1961-3 period.
However, as with most other parts of the country, by the mid-1970s the apartheid state had succeeded in crushing effective organization and resistance to its rule. The 1976-7 uprising, which involved extensive rebellion and repression in the Eastern Cape, did not leave much of a legacy of tight-knit organization or of democratic participation. It was the late 1970s which saw the emergence of a new style of civic organization in the form of PEBCO, followed in the early 1980s by the emergence of militant and strongly organized youth and student organizations. It was these organizations that were to make up the core of the UDF in the region; and as the UDF grew, so the organizational network expanded until nearly every African community in every small rural town in the Eastern Cape was brought into the resistance movement.
While the UDF was formed as a broad front against the Tricameral Parliament, it really achieved resonance in the Eastern Cape and in African townships in Gauteng when its affiliates took up the campaign against the Black Local Authorities. These powerless institutions were meant to share the burden of administering the black townships, financing themselves through collecting rents, and struggling to deliver services to communities which had been systematically deprived of facilities for decades. Unsurprisingly, the councilors who took up positions in these BLAs became the targets of intense anger from local residents; campaigns against rent hikes or poor housing spilt over into anger against those individuals who were perceived as assisting in the administration of apartheid. As the Black Local Authorities came under pressure, they began to employ increasingly brutal municipal police to maintain their position; even so, community pressure led to the resignation of many councils and the de facto collapse of this system of local government. The employment of the consumer boycott strategy placed enormous pressure on local white-owned businessmen, and led in the case of Port Elizabeth to the head of the Chamber of Commerce taking a remarkably progressive stand in intervening to obtain the release of the leadership so that negotiations could proceed. The situation in the townships deteriorated as thousands of militant youth vented their anger against councilors, policemen, municipal infrastructure, bottlestores, schools and almost all symbols of authority. The ANC astutely assessed the situation and incorporated this collapse into its overall revolutionary strategy of 'protracted peoples war': calling on the militant youth to 'render the country ungovernable and apartheid unworkable', they began to offer military training to select groups of youth.
Where was the UDF while all this was going on? Accused by the security forces as being the 'internal wing of the ANC', the leadership of the UDF and its affiliates became targets of extreme repression. The better organized the UDF was, the more dangerous it was, and the worse the repression. Thus in mid-1985, when the first, partial State of Emergency was declared, the key leaders of UDF affiliates in the Eastern Cape were detained and brutally tortured until the 'Wendy Orr interdict' posed -for a while- some limitations on security police activity. Key leaders of the UDF - notably Matthew Goniwe, the regional organiser - and its affiliates were assassinated by the security forces.
The UDF really did have a 'double agenda' - on the one hand it was, of course, part of a broader ANC-led strategy of national liberation, with key leadership being closely linked to the ANC underground. On the other hand, it was concerned with a genuinely democratic project of building popular organisations, giving ordinary people a voice, and enabling participation by hundreds of thousands of people in townships around the country in political action. Sometimes this action was around very local issues and grievances; sometimes it was linked to national programmes of action. Very often, it involved the establishment of 'grassroots' structures such as street and area committees, which enabled ordinary people to exercise at least some measure of control over decision-making which affected their lives.
This process was particularly successful in many of the townships of the Eastern Cape, where despite the high levels of violence and repression, many residents - including middle-aged and elderly residents - saw these structures as playing a positive role in their lives, in regulating petty crime and anti-social behaviour, facilitating development initiatives (such as the electrification of Kwazakele), and allowing participation in decisions over events such as consumer boycotts.
In addition to this experiment in popular democracy, there is no doubt that the UDF made a significant contribution to the creation of a culture of non-racialism, and the building of a national democratic project. Even though few white democrats participated in the liberation struggle in the Eastern Cape, the UDF created a broad front which welcomed contributions from all sectors - thus sportspeople, church leaders, war resisters and human rights activists were all welcomed into the fold, and the language of tolerance, inclusivity and unity came to predominate over narrow sectarian interests or groups defined by race or ethnicity.
Research conducted some years after the decline of the UDF revealed that many township residents in the Eastern Cape saw this period as one which empowered them and gave them a positive experience of democratic participation. In some cases, efforts were made to transform this experience into participation in the transition and post-transition phases of the 1990s.
However, by the time of the 1998 elections it became clear that there was a real sense of disillusionment with the 'normalisation' of politics: people 'on the ground' feel that the government - whether at local, provincial or national level - had become increasingly remote, inaccessible, and unresponsive to their needs. The decline of local civic organisations has gone hand-in-hand with the decline in participation in ANC branches.
A real challenge faces the ANC now in trying to recapture something of this culture of democratic participation - not only to hold public officials and political office-bearers to account, but also to ensure that people do not relate to government simply as a delivery-mechanism. This involves, of course, a notion of 'strong democracy' - in which a strong state relates in a positive way to a strong civil society; and in which citizens are able to relate to government as active participants, rather than just as passive recipients of policy.
Extract from: State of the Nation, A SASPU National publication Vol. 5 No. 1
April 1987
The top-secret launch of the mammoth South African Youth Congress (SAYCO) in Cape Town has widely been heralded as a victory not only for the youth, but for the entire progressive movement. It marked the welding together of the youth into what is likely to be one of the democratic movement's most powerful organisations.
The launch proved that attempts to crush the militancy, determination and organisations of the youth are failing. They have advanced to meet the challenge of the state of emergency and advanced despite the most repressive conditions in years.
The youth have been one of the main targets of repression. About 80% of the 30 000 emergency detainees and many victims of vigilante attacks and assassinations are youth. Even before its formal launch there were strong indications that SAYCO would be a prime target for repression.
Despite this, in a remarkable organisational feat about 200 delegates from nine regions, and the national interim coordinating committee, arrived safely at the launch from all over the country. There were those that symbolised the newly forged layers of youth leadership. Others are tried and tested youth leaders, former political prisoners and a few more who were at the COSAS Congress some eight years ago when the youth organisation idea first surfaced. Some had only recently been released from detention. Most are permanently on the run while continuing to operate underground in their areas, so the tight security was not entirely new.
While there were no illusions about the seriousness of the threats and challenges facing organisations, the launch itself gave an overwhelming sense of history in the making and that their slogan "Freedom or Death, Victory is Certain' is a serious one. It reflected the militancy and determination, confidence and courage and impatience characteristic of the youth.
SAYCO's colours are black, green, gold and red, and its logo shows a hammer, a spear and a book emerging from a crowd of youth marching under a SAYCO flag. Their allegiances were clear not only in their slogans and freedom songs, but in their hard-hitting resolutions and programme of action. SAYCO has a firm and united political stand and an emphasis on discipline which goes a lot deeper than slogans and emotionalism. There was a clarity about tasks and direction, about the future they are striving towards, and what role they, as the youth must play in achieving this.
With an estimated membership of over half a million and active support of over two million South African Youth, SAYCO is the UDF's largest affiliate.
It has committed itself to forging principled working relationships with COSATU and progressive workers, women's, community and student organisations which share its principles. Alliances will also be build with progressive sports, cultural and religious bodies.
There is no doubt that SAYCO will take South Africa's people closer to freedom.
The early years of the UDF was characterised by much debate about the affiliation of unions to the UDF and working class leadership of the front. These debates took place in the context of talks within the union movement on the formation of a united federation, and in preparation for the federation, the formation of one industry one union. This process culminated in the launch of COSATU in 1985.
Editorial, Sechaba, 1 January 1986
The launch of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), during the last days of November (1985), was historic in many respects. Durban -the scene of the 1973-74 strikes which ushered in the new trade union and working class militancy - was chosen as a venue.
930 delegates representing 37 progressive trade unions formed a trade union federation - the Congress of South African Unions. This federation represents nearly half a million black workers. Surely it's the biggest and most representative workers movement in the history of South Africa.
The new federation represents a merger between factory-based unions and community-centred unions, including unions affiliated to the UDF. This was a product of hard work - four years of 'unity talks' and much more; hard slogging, day-to-day explanations, and mobilisation of people on bread an butter (or, to be more precise, mielies and sour milk) issues.
This also means that a powerful new voice has been added to the politics of South Africa. This new extension of trade union cooperation is a new source of strength, not only to the new worker body, but to the democratic trade union and working class movement in South Africa in general.
At a mass rally at the Durban King's Park Stadium, Elijah Barayi, vice president of the National Union of Mine Workers and the newly elected President of COSATU, addressed and audience of 10 000 chanting and cheering people. He told them that COSATU is fighting for better wages and working conditions; it is also fighting against apartheid. The new organisation wants to ensure that its worker-orientated policies "are eventually made the politics of the oppressed people of this country." He demanded the nationalisation of the mines and industries, and supported the call for disinvestment, and went on to say that unless the regime scrapped apartheid in six months, the new federation would organise a campaign of pass burning.
This is not an empty threat if one remembers that at the mass funeral in Queenstown on 7 December 1985, African youths wearing khaki uniforms, decorated with ANC colours and carrying wooden AKs and revolvers, sang revolutionary songs of Umkhonto we Sizwe and acted out battles. The people at home mean business.
The principles on which this new federation is formed are:
There are many problems to be resolved and lots more to be solved. The Council of Unions of South Africa (CUSA) and the Azanian Confederation of Trade Unions (AZACTU) stayed away because they subscribe to a policy of 'black leadership' rather than non-racialism. There are 560 000 workers organised in white-dominated , racist trade unions, and only 14% of the total work force is organised in any union.
In welcoming the formation of COSATU, the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) stated: " Our revolution requires a united and strong trade union movement, determined to satisfy demands for higher wages, good working conditions, removal of colour bars, equal opportunities to work and the achievement of complete emancipation. The new federation, COSATU, can and will fulfill these aims. It must become a truly democratic centre of organised activity for all workers who are determined to liberate our country from its existing oppressive and exploitative social system... The Federation, in unison with the national liberation movement and its allies, is called upon to perform an historic task by calling on its members and the organised workers to participate fully in the struggle for liberation, social justice and equality."
COSATU News, No. 2 November 1986
Every worker wants unity. That is why they join trade unions. That is why our trade unions formed COSATU, so that we can unite the strengths of hundreds of thousands of workers. We know that we are going to need the maximum unity and strength if we are to win what we need. Today - with the bosses and the government attacking our movement so hard under their Emergency - we feel this more than ever.
Other organisations which have the support of workers and youth are feeling this too. This great need for unity and for united mass action against the apartheid system, which is causing us so much poverty and suffering. So the UDF and the NECC approached COSATU and said: 'We need to all stand together. We need national unity against the racist Botha government. We need united mass action to end the Emergency and bury apartheid."
The COSATU CEC discussed this and agreed that national unity of the oppressed is very important. The question was: how do we build this unity? Some unions were saying that what we need is a united front of all organisations supported by workers. These unions said that COSATU must take the lead to build the long-term unity of the oppressed under the leadership of the working class. They said this unity must be organised around common demands. The unity should be organised through the united front, at local, regional and national level.
They said that all organisations must be independent in the united front, but there must be discipline. Nobody should decide on action without consultation. Joint action on common demands should be the basis of unity. Many unions agreed that this was important. But others said that it would take time to discuss exactly how this long-term unity would be build. They said there should immediately be a short, specific campaign around common demands.
In the short term the CEC felt COSATU must build the call for a united mass action and national unity against the Botha regime. And that long-term unity must continued to be discussed in COSATU and with other organisations. COSATU said there must be more demands for national unity and united mass action. The other organisations agreed with this. This is a great step forward for unity. Our organisations have the power in our hands to unite millions who want what we want:-
SASPU National, 9 September 1983
The recent AZASO Congress once again saw students focusing on the campaign for an Education Charter. This campaign had been initiated by AZASO and COSAS during 1982. A special commission was set up to review the progress made in this important project.
It was initially proposed at second AZASO congress held in July 1982 that the Education Charter campaign collect the demands of the oppressed in the sphere of education. The second congress felt that AZASO and COSAS should take the initiative in launching a nation-wide campaign for the drawing up of an Education Charter. Students agreed that the Education Charter that will eventually be drawn up should contain the short-term, medium term and long term demands of the oppressed and exploited people of South Africa.
The Charter should take its inspiration from the Clause of the Freedom Charter, which states, "The doors of learning and culture shall be opened", it could serve as a beacon to students struggling for a single nonracial and democratic education system within a united and democratic South Africa. 'Rather than being the product of handful of intellectuals, it should bring forward the demands of all students struggles past and present, It would thus include the demands of the 1953 campaign against Bantu Education, 1976 student revolt, 1980 schools boycott as well as demonstrations against Quota Bill and age limits, said an AZASO spokesperson. The 1982 Congress defined education in the broadest sense to include pre-school education and adult education.
The Education Charter will not be the product of students alone. Workers, women, youth and church organizations will be involved in the process of drawing up the Charter. Using these guidelines, the National Executive Committees of AZASO and COSAS came up with a more concrete direction for the campaign. It was divided into 5 spheres:
The scale of the campaign is vast. Large areas of South Africa, especially rural areas are unorganized and thus require special attention. Furthermore, 1983 is likely to be a difficult year. Workers are facing unemployment, retrenchment and severe attacks from the state in the forms of the Koornhof bills. Trade unions and other progressive organizations are involved in the struggle against the Presidents Council proposals and the Bills.
Therefore, in the near future, the campaign will be limited to students. AZASO and COSAS branches are being encouraged to form Education Charter committees and to hold seminars and workshops on education. Despite slow progress during early 1983, AZASO and COSAS agreed to a National Focus Week on Bantu Education. The focus week ended with nationwide mass meetings on June 16 where the idea of an Education Charter was introduced to students.
Thousands of pamphlets, stickers and posters ensured the focus week was a success.
In Durban over a thousand students attended a June 16 meeting held at Howard College.
In Cape Town some 100 people attended a meeting held in Bonteheuwel,and another 800 attended a memorial meeting in Gugulethu.
June 16 was also commemorated at Mangosuthu Technikon and Turfloop,Wits and Ngoya universities.
The 1983 AZASO Congress, held in July this year, passed a resolution on the Education Charter stating:
Jean Middleton
Sechaba, 2 February 1984
The meeting of 10 October 1984, where the Transvaal stay-away of the 5th and 6th of November was first discussed, marked a new stage in intense political activity and bitter resistance. It was convened by the Congress of South African Students (COSAS), which called on student, community and worker's organisations to get together to discuss civic and labour problems and the educational crisis; so though it was called by the students it was not intended to plan student action alone. The trade unions joined in and took a significant part, but the stay away, when it took place, was not a trade union action alone.
The organising committee was later described by the Solidarity News Service, based in Botswana as: " the greatest unity of democratic and anti-apartheid forces in South Africa in recent years." And its chairman, Thami Mali of FOSATU said of the action that it was: "the first time in South African history that trade unions and militant organisations have acted in such dramatic concert."
After the first meeting, the delegates went back to their communities to access their strength there.
During the course of that year, Black residential areas in South Africa had become battlefields. The township of Sebokeng had, according to press reports, been left in ruins in September, after protest against an increase in rents and subsequent police repression.
Then, on the 23 October 1984, 7000 troops and police moved into Sebokeng, the township was sealed off, and people were arrested on an average of one a minute, during a house-to-house search for (according to the official statements of the apartheid regime) "revolutionary and criminal elements".
Three hundred (300) people were charged as a result of this raid, but all except six people were charged as a result of this raid, but all except six of these with petty offenses. There was an outcry over the use of the army for police duties, and the Progressive Federal Party called for the army to be withdrawn from the townships; police spokesmen claimed that the army was used outside the townships to cordon them off while the police went in.
Operation Palmiet - the final straw
The police gave the name Operation Palmiet to this brutal and threatening piece of work in Sebokeng, and 'official sources' hinted to the press that there might be more such raids on other townships. Operation Palmiet was probably an important factor when, at the second meeting, a decision was taken to call a stay away.
The second meeting took place on 27 October. At it - constituting the Transvaal Regional Stay-away Committee - were representatives of 37 community and trade union organisations, formed and strengthened in protest campaigns over the past months; among them the Release Mandela Committee, the Federation of Transvaal Women, the Vaal Civic Association, the East Rand People's Organisation, the Federation of South African Unions (FOSATU), the Council of Unions of South Africa (CUSA), the Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union (CCAWUSA), the United Mining and Metal Workers Union (UMMWUSA), the General and Allied Workers Union (GAWU) and the General Workers Union (GWU). The UDF as a collective organisation was not involved, though a number of its affiliates took part, and it later issued a statement in support of the stay away.
In the previous two months there had been three stay aways in the Transvaal, all of them locally based: one in the towns of the Vaal Triangle, one in Soweto and one in KwaThema near Springs. This time, the call went out to all areas in the Transvaal, and the political scope of the protest was wide, so that demands which had grown up in specific campaigns over the year came together in what was to become a massive protest.
The demands were:
Between 27 October and 5 November there was an intensive organising campaign, with pamphlets and leaflets. Counter-leaflets, opposing the stay away were also distributed, and these were popularly attributed to the police (one of them said, "Why don't these people spend the money they are spending on pamphlets on something worthy, like food and clothing for the poor?")
In an attempt to diffuse the situation, the Minister of Law and Order, Louis Le Grange, claimed that the "unrest" was dying out, and that it was "calming progressively"; and at the beginning of November the police reported that it was "waning" on the East Rand and in the Eastern Cape. These statements, however, were not borne out by events, for throughout the country tension remained high and repression continued.
Some attempt had been made to placate the students. Strict guidelines on the use of corporal punishment had been issued, schools had been given permission to elect SRCs, the age limit - much resented - had been abolished. There was still no suggestion that the quality of black education should be improved, and no talk of extra money being allocated to it, so these changes were clearly cosmetic, and the students were not deceived. Le Grange suggested that the "unrest" might die once the schools closed, implying that the students had been entirely responsible for it. He was proved wrong.
An Historic Action
The response to the stay away call was tremendous, and the action an historic one. Radio Freedom, the voice of the ANC, broadcasting on 9 November 1984 called it a: "resounding success... a victory scored in the face of a massive police and army presence in the townships."
FOSATU and the UDF claimed a stay away rate of between 65% to 95% in different areas. About ten days later, the Association of Chambers of Commerce estimated that the response to the call had been between 75% to 100% in the main industrial areas of the Witwatersrand. The stoppage in Atteridgeville - a centre of protest since the beginning of the year -was said to be almost total. The huge parastatals, SASOL and ISCOR, stopped working. Solidarity News Service estimated that over half a million workers took part. Estimates of the number of students who stayed at home ranged from 250 000 to 400 000.
Observers later made comparisons with the great stay aways of the fifties. It is worth recalling that in the days of the Congress Alliance, SACTU and the other Congresses worked hand in hand, so that then, as today, organisation at the factory gates complemented and reinforced organisation in the communities.
The police moved in with Caspir armoured vehicles, and by Tuesday the army had been deployed on the East Rand, while residents set up road blocks of rocks, burned-out buses, burning tyres, old cars and dust bins. The Chemical Workers Industrial Union (CWIU) claimed that at SASOL two Hippo personnel carriers filled with police had driven into a union meeting of about 6 000 workers during a union meeting on Tuesday morning. The Sowetan of 8 November 1984 reported seven dead in Tembisa, six in Ratanda, four in Kathlehong, six in Ratanda, one in Duduza, and one in Alexandra.
At this time, the people also showed their anger against the local community councillors, those detested symbols of the apartheid regime, and two councillors homes in Tembisa were set alight. In an article in the Sunday Times of 18 November 1984, Allister Sparks reported that by that time seven community councillors were dead, and others had resigned or had fled, so that only four out of 22 councillors were still functioning.
Sackings at SASOL
Most employers seem to have treated the two days as leave - paid or unpaid -but there was some victimisation, and both CCAWUSA and the Food and Beverage Workers Union threatened legal action on behalf of those members who had been sacked. By far the worst victimisation was that at SASOL II and III, branches of the parastatal, where, on the Tuesday morning, the entire morning shift (the bulk of the workforce) was dismissed, and the rest of the workers given an ultimatum to return to work during the course of the day, while police in armoured vehicles surrounded makeshift pay points. In all, 6000 SASOL workers were sacked, and for some, at least, who were interviewed by the press, it was their first job after a long period of unemployment. The general secretary of the CWIU said that the union had informed the SASOL workers that they were exempt from the call to strike, but they had nevertheless insisted on observing it.
He spoke of the "pent-up anger and frustration" of the black SASOL workers, and said that to them the plant meant "danger, arduous working conditions, barracks-like hostels, racial oppression, rumours of men killed in accidents during the night and whisked away, and generally a very oppressive environment."
The action SASOL took against the workers seriously disrupted production at the plant. 1000 new workers were employed almost at once, but that was only a sixth of the number of workers needed; and untrained as the new workers were (it took eight months to train a SASOL worker) it was clear that it must have been an ineffective work force. The CWIU claimed that security functions at the plant had been taken over by the police so that security staff could be freed to take part in production, but the management denied this. At all events, before two weeks passed, the management had invited the sacked workers to re-apply for their jobs, saying that such applications would be sympathetically considered if the workers could satisfy the company that they were 'victims of intimidation.'
Power in our hands
In an interview with the Financial Mail of 16 November 1984, Thami Mali said of the stay away: "It has...shown that we have power in our hands. It showed that we can bring the machinery of the country to a standstill."
Spokesmen of the regime had been making threatening statements around this time. Louis Le Grange had issued a warning to political activists not to cry if they got hurt. The Minister of Home Affairs, FW De Klerk, had said the government would not allow 'destabilising actions' in any area, and told an employers union meeting in Cape Town: "South Africa cannot afford to allow its labour and economic spheres to become a political battlefield... strong action will be taken against instigators, arsonists and radicals... order shall be maintained."
On November 8 came the arrest of leaders of six organisations that had been involved. On 12 November, The Citizen newspaper, in its usual role as mouthpiece of the regime, reported that the police were "working around the clock" to establish who had been 'responsible' for the action. Before another week was up, the number of those arrested had risen to 20; all-leading members of organisations that had openly endorsed the stay away.
Reports of resistance and repression continued - a raid on Tembisa in the middle of November, which the police described as an 'anti crime swoop', a boy of eight injured with a stray bullet, a baby almost killed by tear gas, more than 20 people injured by police birdshot in Port Alfred, a man killed in Graaff-Reinett, thousands arrested in rent raids in Sebokeng and so on.
The regime and big business disagree The regime had not been able to conceal its dismay at the arrival of the new stage of struggle. South African employers organisations and their spokesmen of big business also showed their perturbation, for what they call 'industrial peace' as a safeguard for their super profits. There was some disagreement though, over what methods should be used to preserve the situation in which black workers were exploited to produce these profits. The Association of Chambers of Commerce, the Federated Chamber of Industries and the Afrikaanse Handels Instituut all condemned the detentions of leaders of the stay away as harmful to 'harmonious and productive' labour relations.
While Pretoria seemed likely to adopt a tactic of harassing the trade unions, others were recommending strategies for capturing them. The Centre for Investigation of Revolutionary Activities at the Rand Afrikaanse Universiteit held a conference at the beginning of October 1984, entitled "South African trade unions: Revolution or Peace?' The labour advisor to the Anglo-American Corporation told this conference that trade unions could act as powerful agents for reform. Professor Nic Wiehan, director of the School of Business at UNISA, said that South African trade unions had become 'politicised' in 'socialism and communism'. He went on to say: "It is thus necessary that we politicise our own trade unions in the anti-socialist and anti-communist ideologies."
English language press comments
It is interesting to look at some of the editorial comment in the South African English press about that time. The Citizen of 9 November 1984, predictably, defended the policies and actions of the regime: "the radicals...pose a challenge to the government, which will force it to respond with drastic action to prevent the situation from getting out of hand...It cannot allow the economy of the country to be disrupted."
Other papers took a different line. The Cape Argus of 14 November called for an investigation into the causes of the unrest. The Sunday Times of 11 November went further: "the times...demand from government bold moves to redress genuine black grievances." The Sunday Tribune of the same date was most forthright of all. It said: "The answer is simple: Blacks want a meaningful say in the future of the country. White decisions imposed on Blacks still continue, but should have stopped years ago when even the densest of politician realised the homelands policy was a disaster."
In spite of all these calls upon it, the answer the regime made to the situation was to intensify repression, and to do this it recklessly spent money it did not have, gambling all it can borrow on a desperate throw. Gold prices fell, drought once again caused a failure of the maize crop and the motor industry was in recession. South Africa (according to a report in the Rand Daily Mail of 19 November 1984) was heavily in both long-term and short-term debt overseas and found it more and more difficult to raise foreign loans, because of "a combination of a deteriorating economy and recurring reports of unrest in the black townships."
There was another possibility that was closer than ever before: that of having power in South Africa pass into the hands of the people themselves. Thirty years ago, the Freedom Charter first proclaimed that: "South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people."
We quote again Thami Mali: "We cannot go back now. Our duty is to step up resistance and create an ungovernable situation." When asked the day before he was arrested, 'What will you call for?' he replied: "The minimum demands of the people are contained in the Freedom Charter. Of course, the people will have to come forward and lay these out. But even if such a call is made, it cannot be to the Transvaal Regional Stay away Committee. There are leaders of the people of South Africa and there are leaders of the workers of this country...The leaders of the people have been jailed for life: Nelson Mandela and others, and there are leaders of the people in exile. Those are the people the government should talk to, not us."
By Kate Philip (NUSAS president 1983/84) and Brendan Barry (NUSAS president 1985/86)
The formation of the United Democratic Front in 1983 had a profound impact on NUSAS and students on its university campuses at the time. From the late 1970's, the Freedom Charter had become a key mobilising document for NUSAS, providing compelling vision of a non-racial, democratic South Africa for white students. But it was with the formation of the UDF that it became possible for NUSAS to turn the non-racialism of the Freedom Charter from a matter of principle, to a matter of practice for large numbers of students. The UDF forged an alliance that united and strengthened the struggles of its political, community, youth, trade union, women and student affiliates and rapidly generated an unprecedented and nation-wide mobilization against apartheid.
Mobilising against Apartheid
When NUSAS joined with hundreds of other organizations throughout the country to form the UDF, it faced the key challenge of ensuring that it retained the support of the majority of students on the white campuses for this decision, in the face of state-funded and organized right wing and liberal opposition.
While most mass organisations build their membership by organising directly around the interests of their members, the historical challenge for NUSAS was to organise white students to take a stand that appeared contrary to their interests: to recognise that the white minority privileges they enjoyed as a result of apartheid were unjust and unjustifiable, and to ally themselves with the forces for democracy in South Africa.
For NUSAS, winning this ideological battle on the campuses was a pre-requisite for survival. As a federation of SRCs, NUSAS had to maintain student support for its policies and campaigns on every affiliated campus, or risk losing SRC elections, or facing campus-wide referendums to disaffiliate from NUSAS.
Year after year, and despite concerted State opposition, NUSAS managed to win support from the majority of white students for the anti-apartheid cause. But it could never take its constituency for granted: it had to win the battle of ideas: in mass meetings, campaigns, concerts and lecture halls, through pamphlets, posters, publications and campus radio stations, NUSAS sought to expose white students to South Africa's bitter realities, to overcome the comfortable separations and silences that apartheid worked so hard to create, and to find ways in which to support the wider struggle for a non-racial, democratic South Africa.
The complicated set of reforms with which PW Botha aimed to 're-engineer' apartheid created the basis for the widest ever mobilization against apartheid, under the banner of the UDF; and NUSAS was able to rally broad support from white students for the UDF, and to participate actively in the campaigns and protests that erupted against first the tri-cameral elections, then the black local authority elections, and the township uprisings that started in the Vaal and spread across the country in protest at the imposition of those local authorities.
For NUSAS, the decision to be part of UDF enabled us to link white students with these struggles in ways that were meaningful and material; that allowed these students to be participants in South Africa's democratic movement, side by side with the many constituencies within UDF, and in support of their struggles.
Opening the Doors of Learning and Culture
Student and youth struggles were a critical feature of the UDF period. NUSAS, COSAS and AZASO (subsequently SANSCO) had formed a non-racial student alliance from early in the 1980's, and formed the student wing of the UDF.
The 1980 school boycotts, led by COSAS, were an early skirmish in what was to be an intensifying struggle in the schools, with demands that included an end to Bantu education, the right to elect Student Representative Councils, and an end to corporal punishment and sexual harassment in the schools.
In 1984, a new dimension was brought to student struggles, in the Transvaal stayaway, in which trade unions organized a mass strike in support of student demands: identifying themselves as parents of students, and making the link between student demands for representative structures in the schools, and trade union struggles for recognition in the factories. The Transvaal was brought to a standstill. It was the first of many such stayaways to come, as increasingly organized workers asserted their power on the factory floor in relation to wider political issues.
The realities of conditions under Bantu education, and the huge discrepancies in state spending on white and black education highlighted all the more starkly for white students that their own education had been one of privilege: based not just on who had textbooks and who went without, but in terms also of the role of ideology in the very different content of the educations received.
The infamous quote from Verwoerd emphasized the goals of Bantu education and bears reminding: "What is the use of teaching the Bantu child mathematics which it cannot use in practice? There is no place for him above the level of certain forms of labour...We should not give the native an academic education....we should so conduct school that the native will know that he must be a labourer in this country."
COSAS turned Verwoerd's dream into PW Botha's nightmare. Throughout the country, COSAS generated a leadership cadre characterized by its political maturity and insight and above all its courage. Together with other township youth formations, it provided a militant backbone to the entire democratic movement, not only through its own struggles but through its former students as they reached tertiary education institutions, joined trade unions, community organizations and MK. The struggles of COSAS students inspired NUSAS and its campaigns for many years and its banning in 1985 precipitated major protests on NUSAS campuses.
Challenging the Role of Universities
While much NUSAS activity was focused on solidarity with COSAS in opposing Bantu education, the struggles in the schools also cast into sharp relief the roles our own education was designed to have us play in our society, and the question of what we should be doing to challenge that education, and to find different ways to use our skills than those planned for us.
As a NUSAS publication of the time explained:
"Our universities are designed to prepare us for specific roles in the apartheid system. We are taught various skills in such a way that they will be useful to the privileged minority in South Africa, yet be inaccessible to the vast majority. A changed South Africa will need professionals whose skills are oriented towards serving the interests of the community as a whole."
NUSAS highlighted that a democratic South Africa needed architects and town-planners who understood the housing crisis in South Africa; doctors trained in preventive health care rather than plastic surgery; and teachers who can teach the history of resistance to colonialism and apartheid, not how Jan Van Riebeeck brought civilization to the Cape.
In practice, NUSAS worked with representative student structures in faculty councils, and with progressive academics, to challenge the content of education in the universities across every discipline; and challenged students to use their skills in support of the transformation of society.
Many students who were part of NUSAS tried to do precisely this on leaving the campuses, and continue to do so in the new South Africa, as part of building and sustaining the spirit of non-racialism in the era of transformation.
The challenge posed to students, of finding ways to use their skills in support of democratic struggles, was a factor contributing to the proliferation of what in the 1980s became known as 'service organisations'. These NGOs included legal support services which challenged human rights abuses; para-legal support to communities contesting forced removals; community health services, refugee support structures in Natal, responding to the displacement of people during the Inkatha violence against UDF and COSATU in the region; labour research services, urban planning NGOs working with civic structures; media support agencies, and many more: staffed by activists, graduates and professionals, black and white, who sought to apply their skills in ways that strengthened the democratic movement.
Solidarity and Support for Wider Struggles
While NUSAS challenged the racist education system, and mobilized white students against apartheid, students were also organized to provide support for the wide range of struggles that emerged under the UDF banner. Not only did UDF provide a common platform for the voice of grassroots structures, but also a vehicle through which apparently isolated struggles were able to build a cumulative and decisive impact.
When NUSAS activists weren't silk-screening posters for mass meetings on campus, they were doing so for youth organizations and unions; printing presses at NUSAS Head Office and on many campuses often cranked through the night, producing pamphlets that were not destined for campus consumption. Students campaigned for the release of political prisoners and pamphleteered buses and trains with 'Free Mandela' pamphlets; spoke at black schools to promote non-racialism side by side with COSAS; pamphleteered white schools in support of COSAS; organized support for consumer boycotts and worker struggles; picketed the tri-cameral parliament voting booths and marched in protest against the states of emergency, detentions and the treason trials of UDF leaders.
The advent of UDF also brought new forms of organization, and opportunities for new forms of involvement in struggle by white students. In the white community, organizations such as the End Conscription Campaign, the Black Sash and the Five Freedoms Forum were bringing new constituencies into the anti-apartheid fold, even where these were not directly affiliated to the UDF.
New forms of constituency-based organization in the UDF also provided white students with opportunities to struggle alongside workers, youth and community members in UDF's local and regional campaign structures: as part of the Million Signature Campaign, organising against tri-cameral and community council elections and Bantustan repression. Students also joined local youth structures, which often cut across the spatial racial divisions of the Group Areas Act, which were fraying at the edges in many urban centres; and campus women's movements were able to link up with community-based women's structures.
Troops in the Townships
In the context of the massive growth in popular organization that characterized the UDF period, as well as the formation of Cosatu and the growing use of strikes and stayaways, the apartheid government made it clear that it intended to retain control at all costs: with massive repression.
In this context, the widespread deployment of SADF troops in the townships had a profound impact on the campuses; an impact enhanced by students' experiences of participating side by side in campaigns with the organizations now being targeted by apartheid's army.
At the time, white male students faced compulsory conscription to the SADF after leaving school or after completing their university studies. Opposition to conscription had grown in response to the South African war of occupation in Namibia and southern Angola and the murderous raids by the SADF into frontline states. On the campuses, opposition increasingly turned to rejection as student conscripts and potential conscripts confronted the immediate reality of war against their fellow South Africans in townships throughout the country. More and more white students demanded the removal of troops from the townships, supported the End Conscription Campaign and joined the struggle against apartheid.
NUSAS in the States of Emergency
In 1985, NUSAS July festival was due to be opened by Matthew Goniwe, speaking about the remarkable levels of community organization in the small towns of the Eastern Cape. Instead, the conference opened with the news of his disappearance: and then, during the conference, that his body, together with the bodies of Fort Calata, Sparrow Mkhonto and Sicelo Mlauli had been found on a back road outside Port Elizabeth, assassinated by apartheid forces. Their funeral attracted hundreds of thousands of people to the small town of Cradock; but that evening, PW Botha declared his first State of Emergency. In film footage used by the SABC to justify the emergency, Beyers Naude (who was honourary president of NUSAS at the time) was shown during his speech at the funeral. But instead of the measured words of solidarity and struggle he'd given, the footage had been speeded up, so that he was seen waving his arms demonically at the crowds. The propaganda onslaught against the democratic movement had entered a new phase of intensity and deceit.
The successive states of emergency were vicious in their attempts to smash organization. The exuberant presence of mass organization in the early stages of UDF was forced into semi-clandestine forms of operation. Many activists were targeted and killed. Many ordinary people came under fire. Attending mass funerals of the victims of state violence became a form of solidarity in its own right. As community leadership was forced on the retreat, the state nurtured forms of vigilantism and internecine violence.
In this context, although the university campuses were not beyond the reach of repression, they were nevertheless a zone of relative protection. NUSAS did its utmost to use this space to maintain the profile of resistance and opposition, and to provide a platform for leaders from mass-based organizations in the UDF and Cosatu. Under student pressure, university administrations were forced to choose sides, and many chose to protect the rights of students to create such platforms and to protest as part of academic freedom, using their powers - but not always successfully - to keep the riot police, the Casspirs and Hippos at bay.
The ability of NUSAS to operate nationally was also severely curtailed, with its Congress banned from Cape Town in 1985, its 1986 July Festival banned, many student leaders detained, and others living on the run as they ducked and dived to evade the attentions of the security police.
In those dark hours, it was hard to comprehend that what lay at the end of the tunnel was light; that the intensity of repression was part of the death throes of the regime; that the balance of forces had in fact tipped; and that the release of political prisoners, the unbanning of the ANC and the SACP and the negotiated transition to democracy would follow.
By Graeme Bloch (UDF and NECC executives in W Cape)
As I think back to another time, the time of the UDF, all sorts of images flood back.
The dull thud-thud of helicopter blades. I have been watching outside the Manenberg police station all morning. The priests and imams, arms linked, lead a march over the bridge into the African township. Another funeral, another young death. Always under the spiky armed guard of the buffels, ratels, armoured cars, crammed with scared young recruits. Now sirens and helicopters. An ambulance. More sirens and shouts. Someone in the crowd has thrown a grenade, and the riot police chief is hit by shrapnel. We see it on TV that night in the crazy whirl as the cameraman dives for cover. The dull thud thud. Teargas, bullets, more deaths.
Being on the run. For three years, Cheryl Carolus and I held the national record, keeping out of their clutches, though my photo as wanted was up in Mowbray Police Station. So the funny stories, like when my brother and girlfriend were surrounded by armed cops at an open air food festival. Wrong G Bloch, but girlfriend didn't stick around to go through that again! Or Hugh, sweating it out as cops searched for me in the house, while his Honours thesis notes about torture were spread out all over his desk. He left soon afterwards, not to return, to evade an army call-up.
Being on the run. When you did meet with comrades, or go to a meeting, they would laugh - thick glasses, bokbaard, Rolf Harris look. People always laugh at you before they say hello -disconcerting, another break in human touch. You never say hello to the neighbour's kids, because you don't want to befriend their parents. Screens and disguise, evasions and deceit. You grow hard and tough. You don't cry easily.
Being on the run. Changing cars, never using the telephone. Quick meetings, and quick escapes if anyone is more than ten minutes late. Comrades getting detained, and young kids being tortured. At least you have resources, you get borrowed cars and change.
But to be young, restless, hunted, the brightest of the youth who could not sit back to take the things they saw. We felt the bravery and incredible courage in their pain and rage. Killed, detained, tortured, sometimes broken, but indomitable. They came back. "We'll eat teargas!" I remember one boy shouting at the cops. They fought back and paid a terrible price.
To be free. The UDF expressed our yearning. We were the '76 generation -since that turning point things would never be the same. Seven years later and the masses were beginning to move. We were all younger than 30. The tide of politics drew us in, and new resistances arose every day. The giant of labour was stirring, and shaking a slowing economy, rigid and out-of-date. In Southern Africa, arms had turned the tide. The piecemeal crumbs of PW's reforms opened more space to fight, to organise and raise demands. We want to speak, for ourselves. We want it all, we want it here, and we want it now!
Somehow, the UDF set us free. Always the people ahead of us, always surprising us with their energy. Their courage and willingness to come forward. Their creativity and new ideas. The networks and resources that they drew, who they knew and how they did things, their spontaneous imagination as they grew and learned.
Actions started to link millions and millions of people across the land in a common yearning, loosening that submerged feeling in our hearts and making us wonder if maybe we were nearly there.
When 13 000 came to Mitchells Plain to launch the UDF, I saw it through the practical frame of the catering crews who I led with Mrs Jaffer from Wynberg. 10 000 boiled and peeled eggs. Apples by the crate from Fariedah Omar at Salt River Market, dropped off in Makie's borrowed bakkie. Soup bowls and giant tubs of breyani, steaming as the delegates arrived, late at night, tired and cold off the bus from the Northern Transvaal and desperate for a meal. Comrades who we'd never seen but had heard of, now were here!
Excited and unsure: the new day dawned. Thousands streamed to the launch, banners, colours and song, a new era of unity and defiance, of speaking out and shouting loud, of marches, demonstrations, pickets, hunger strikes, meetings, talks, executives and AGM's, resolutions, strikes, petitions and pamphlets. Action, comrade, action! Seize the imagination and show the way!
Pamphlets, pamphlets by the thousand. Door to door, one at a time, volunteers gave them out and explained their purpose and our goal. House by house by house, at stations, bus stops, in the streets, we talked and told the people what we could do. We explained and listened. Black and white, we tramped the streets of Guguletu and Lavender Hill, of white Claremont and Coloured Paarl. We linked neighbour to neighbour, one to the other, and a country to itself.
We linked ourselves, across barriers, and got to know, together, all the corners of our land. We learned about each other. We discussed what people said, and absorbed the lessons for our next campaign.
Campaigns didn't always work. A national bus boycott flopped, the call just didn't resonate down here. We kept on trying. We were here to stay, here to lead and show a way.
This was a UDF strength. First, courageous leadership sparked response. There were no privileges to being up front, to showing the way. Then, people organised where they were. Constituencies took charge.
It was the ultimate post-modern movement - there was a slogan, a unifying goal or theme. Then each centre took it up as best it could, expressed in the ways that integrated its own experience and sense of place. Small steps gave rise to more. People learned and stepped some more, grew bold and made the links. Action together sparked more, and action gave rise to reaction. The beast out there eventually had to sink!
It was a myriad of small actions, designed to help people get their courage and show them their strength. A million spontaneous steps, organisation, consolidation, discussion, and new response.
In the white areas, a powerful thrust was made. White democrats came together and worked their own areas. Always a minority, they kept the door open, brought information, gathered resources and provided deep bases for the struggle's resilient strength.
In Claremont Civic Centre, we read messages from Asmal of the Irish Anti Apartheid Movement, we condemned the West's complicity and praised the Bonteheuwel young lions. We won a court order to overturn emergency bans. Zapiro did his first cartoons, the famous 1983 UDF calendar.
We brought to the suburbs first hand accounts from squatter camps, from the tortures in the Bantustans. And even deeper went the wedge, as the End Conscription Campaign mobilised and grew against the war, providing channels for deep choices of conscience by young white recruits who refused to serve.
The white areas, too, mobilised to take democrats into the UDF, and to learn from the strengths and differences of the townships and the ghettoes. Our eyes were opened by the realities of people's lives.
When everything came together, as in the vast marches that culminated the Defiance Campaign in 1989, reveling in the purple rain, our own celebrations to match the collapse of the Berlin Wall, finally when the state realised it could no longer shoot, what glory and confidence there was!
Gareth and I, finally detained, in Pollsmoor. Having survived the defiance and put it all in place, now we jog the courtyard restlessly while protests gather momentum outside. As we jog around the prison yard, we fantasise: "Today's the big march! They'll release us now, we'll get a taxi, we'll rush straight to the front!"
It was not to be. We had to wait again for Chris Giffard to come back from his trial to shout across the yard the latest news of the success. But inside, it was clear, even in the interrogations the security cops were not sure which way to turn, had lost their heart. We'd lost our fear, and they didn't know where to go.
Nor should we ever forget how brutal the state could be. People sat in solitary for 3 years. Brains were blown out and bodies blown up. Pickled hands, monkey's paws, chemical compounds and poison, explosives and assassination told the story of a state that knew few bounds. Nuclear bombs were researched and made and tested.
Our young people had to learn to fight rather than to build. The tragedy of a million opportunities lost.
I joined the ANC in 1987, the middle of the darkest nights of the emergency. Tony Yengeni convinced me the fight could not only stay above ground. I knew the ANC's history, the structures it had built, its morality even in its armed war, the palpable sense of its popular appeal . The annual calls that intermingled with the wider mood. The time of struggle we had reached. They all made my move inevitable. 'Make South Africa Ungovernable!' A profound and complex call, that brought us to the final thrust.
UDF too provided the structures in which we could talk about the new era that dawned after 1990. With the opening of negotiations, a new period had begun. The ANC began its long transformation to an electoral giant, the exiles returned, the talks started up. It was time to move on.
I think there are some enormous things we've gained. Everyday in South Africa, I see a new untroubled youth coming through, that tells me the fruits of our struggles are here to stay.
We learned to look at people's strengths, to take people for what they were. This sense of hegemony, this sense that we were right, did not make us arrogant but encouraged us to draw people in, to win them over and let our deeds show them the way. That we could learn from them. That we were different and did not all contribute in the same way.
That together we could change the world. That together we did, though there are long roads still to go.
And, oh yes. I met my love while on the run, late meetings under the railway bridge and stolen walks on Cape Town beaches; strolls up the berg. Somehow we lasted through the pain and fire; something human always burned. In the midst of struggle, I met my wife and love.
The UDF unites, they said!
From ISIZWE, Journal of the UDF. Volume 1 Number 4. March 1987
During the 80's, the struggle against apartheid reached new heights and became more deeply rooted. Many more people were actively fighting for their rights, they became more united and more aware. We have seen this in the sustained mass action country wide - in the factory and school, township and village, in the consumer boycotts, stay aways and rent boycotts, in the street committees and people's courts. Increasingly the people refused to be ruled in the old way, and demand democratic self-government over their daily lives.
This fundamental challenge to apartheid rule did not just suddenly happen. Painstaking ORGANISATION, over many years, knocked down for our people the walls of passivity and powerlessness, of ignorance, divisions and fear. And it is organisation, which remains the key to defending and taking further the challenge to apartheid rule.
What is organisation?
For us in the democratic movement, the concept 'organisation' has a particular meaning. When we talk of 'organising' or 'organisation', we refer to a process which involves a number of things:
Why organise?
Denied full political rights and access to the wealth of the country, the daily lot of our people was one of poverty and hardship. Denied a democratic say and control over their lives, the oppressed had no automatic power to change the situation. The councils, management committees and other puppet bodies that the apartheid government set up were undemocratic and unable to do anything about our problems. But by uniting and action on our problems, we gained strength and power to challenge oppression and to overcome it. Organisation is our tool to build this strength and power.
Central to our understanding of the need for organisation is our belief that it is through our own efforts that we will be able to do something about our problems. Our experience has taught us that when we ourselves act on our problems, only then does change become possible. We have to take charge of our own lives in order to change them.
The efforts we talk about are the efforts of the mass of people. Not just a few individuals or a few enlightened leaders. Change in the true interests of the majority will come about only through the united action of the majority. So we organise to bring about the active participation of the maximum number of people in the issues of daily concern to them - issues of high rents and low wages, housing, education, land reform.
In acting on our problems, we act in unity. Without unity, we cannot effectively address the challenges that face us. We share common problems, and by taking them up together we exercise greater strength and power.
The enemy will always try to undermine and weakens our struggles through dividing us - offering concessions to some and not to others; trying to discredit and isolate democratic organisations and leadership from the people.
Where the apartheid government sought to divide us - parent from youth, homeowner from tenant, Zulu from Xhosa, urban from rural, Indian from African, black taxi-owner, nurse or trader from black worker - we organise to cement a lasting unity. Of course, we understand that not all the interest of these different groups and classes are exactly the same. The black working masses have the greatest interest in taking our struggle to its deepest conclusions. But all oppressed and democratic South Africans have an overriding interest in the final elimination of apartheid. Building the unity of our people around this unifying interest, maintaining and defending this unity, ranks as a priority for us.
To survive, apartheid depended not only on our disunity and lack of action, but also on our ignorance. Ignorance of the reasons for our hardship. Ignorance of our right to a better life. Ignorance of our ability to fight for that right and to achieve it.
We organise to raise the level of understanding and awareness of our people. Through mass struggle we learn that there are reasons for our life of misery and oppression. We learn that our problems can be overcome. We learn of the power of, and need for united action. We develop confidence in our ability to make decisions for ourselves, to take charge of our own lives, and to influence the course and outcome of events.
To give proper expression to our unity in action, to coordinate and direct it, we form organisations, structures and committees. Our organisations allow us to communication with one another, to discuss matters and jointly arrive at decisions. Through our organisations we are able to plan action, implement and coordinate it. It represents our collective voice and ensures we act in unity.
Organisations also help us to learn from our successes and failures. Without constant organisational assessment (does this strategy work. Is this possible? Why did that fail?) there can be little scientific base for ongoing work. Without organisation we can never learn from our collective mass struggle.
It is also within organisation that we develop democracy. The experience of our people in their own democratic organisations, is the experience of democratic participation. Our people are exposed to open discussion and a free expression of views; to working together and sharing joint responsibility; to discipline and accountability.
Through all of this - this dynamic process of organisation - we are protecting ourselves from attacks on our living standards, fighting to improve the quality of our lives, and bringing about change in our interests. As we organise, not only are we challenging and breaking down the old and the negative, but also creating and building the new and positive.
Forms of organisation
The democratic organisations we establish take many and varied forms. The kind of organisations we form and the way they are structured, is determined by a number of factors. These include who is being organised, what their interests are, what issues we are organising, what our goals are.
It could be hostel dwellers, students, commuters, teachers, or the unemployed who are being organised. The organisation that we establish could be a SRC, a trade union, rent action committee or a political organisation.
Sometimes we form bodies for specific sections of the people like unemployed workers association or youth congresses. Some of these bodies may come together under a civic association to represent to represent the total interests of all residents in the community, or all of them can come together under a broad national political movement like the UDF to fight for national liberation.
Organisation, we can see, occurs at different levels and assumes different forms. A careful reading of all relevant factors and conditions, and the lessons and experience we gain while organising will guide us on the nature, form and structure of organisation. But almost as a rule, it is crucial to achieve the involvement of the people who directly experience a particular problem or set of problems.
It is not good, for example, for youth to lead and dominate a struggle against high rents while the workers, parents and tenants are not actively involved. In the same way it is not good for the taxi owners and bus drivers to take a decision on a bus boycott and not the commuters.
Approach to organisation
We refer to our approach to organisation as the mass approach. This is based on our understanding that mass struggle is the key to change. Our mass approach means that we must always be at the level of the people. To confuse the awareness and commitment of the masses with that of activists, would leave us as a small peripheral clique isolated from the people. What are the feelings of the majority of the people? How deeply do they feel about this particular problem? How far are they prepared to go with action? What is their level of understanding on the issue? These are important questions to ask for anyone who is serious about organising.
In line with this, our approach on any issue is one, which seeks to win over as many people as possible. We are careful not to alienate people through ill-discipline, poor conduct or rash action. Important to this approach is consultation and hard work to ensure any decision or action enjoys the broadest possible support. Not only is this an important part of our democratic approach, but it is necessary for the success of that action.
All of this does not mean that our organisations must be passive in the face of those we seek to organise. We must also constantly provide active leadership to the people. To pursue a mass approach to organisation, does not mean folding our arms and moaning about the 'backwardness' of this or that sector of the people.
We must not be fifty steps ahead of the people. But equally, we must not fall behind them. To begin from where the people are at, this is the key to effective organisation. Organisation is the key to mass struggle. Mass struggle is the key to change.
From ISIZWE, Journal of the UDF. Volume 1 No 2. March 1986
The UDF achieved massive mobilisation all over South Africa in a short space of time. It confirmed the correctness of the broad strategy, that the struggle to end all forms of oppression and inequality is most effective and most speedily advanced by the broadest popular front. We call this a strategy of national democratic struggle.
This broad strategy is, however, sometimes labeled 'populist' by some people. We are told that our use of the term 'the people' in our slogans (Forward to People's Power! The People shall Govern!) proves that we are populist. These accusations are in fact false. Let us understand this issue more clearly.
Popular but not populist
First, it is important to understand how we use the term 'the people'.
We use this term to distinguish between the two major camps in society -the
enemy camp and the people's camp. The people's camp is made up of the overwhelming
majority of South Africans - the black working class, the rural masses, the
black petty bourgeoisie, and middle strata (clerks, teachers, nurses, intellectuals).
The people's camp also includes several thousand whites who stand shoulder to
shoulder in struggle with the majority.
The main common goal that unite the people's camp are
It has put the workers, millions strong, into the power-house of our country. It is there together, down the mines, on the large white farms, in the factories and in the big shops, that workers make most of the wealth of the country. And all the time, this great productive army, the working class is being exploited by the bosses,
You have only to list these things to see why we say that workers must play the leading role in the national democratic struggle. They are the key to victory for the whole people's camp. Everyday of their lives, workers learn the great lesson of democratic struggle - that as individuals they are weak, but collectively they are strong.
Populism hides differences
Populism is an ideology that fails to understand (it often deliberately hides) the class and other differences within the ranks of the people. In the people's camp in South Africa there are common unifying interests, for instance, the opposition to apartheid. But within this unity there are differences. A black shopkeeper may oppose apartheid mainly because of Group Areas and racist trading restrictions. A migrant worker may oppose apartheid because of pass laws and low wages. A black teacher may oppose it mainly because of bantu education. A white democrat may oppose apartheid for moral, ideological reasons.
These are just examples and things are not quite so simple in reality, of course. But these examples give us some idea of the need to understand the differences within the unity of the people's camp.
In fact, in order to develop this unity we must have a clear, scientific understanding of these differences. This is what we mean when we speak of the need to understand the differences in our unity in our differences. We must not expect to mobilize and organise all sectors of the people for exactly the same reasons. A black trader and a black worker may have different reasons for joining the same broad ranks of popular struggle.
This is the first major difference between our line and the line of populism. Populism speaks of the people as if the unity within the people's camp was based on completely the same interests.
Let us give an example. In South Africa, Africanist and Black Consciousness ideologists have often had strong populist tendencies. The claim that 'all Africans are socialists' or talk of a single 'African personality' or 'black soul', are all varieties of populism.
These examples of populism all show an unscientific grasp of reality. While they correctly understand the need for a maximum unity in the people's camp, they have a vague understanding of the basis of that unity.
Progressive and reactionary populism
Despite its populist weaknesses, it is important to note that an ideology like black consciousness (BC) played a broadly progressive role in South Africa. In particular in the 1970s, BC played a big role in mobilizing tens of thousands of our youths. The majority of these youths have since gone beyond the limitations of black consciousness.
But not all populism is broadly progressive. The case of Afrikaner Nationalism can be mentioned. This ideology also has a strong populist character. It speaks of a single 'people' (die volk), with its own 'special soul' and historical calling ('roeping'). In speaking of the volk, Afrikaner Nationalism hides the class differences between Afrikaans bosses, the petty bourgeoisie and workers. This brand of populism tends to be based on a very reactionary, racist idea of the superiority of the volk.
The fact that populism can be broadly progressive, or extremely reactionary is important to remember. Not all forms of populism must be handled in the same way. In its most reactionary forms, populism is an enemy ideology, and it must be treated as such. But those who hold a more progressive brand of populism must be educated and developed. Elements of their outlook can be built upon, and their understanding and practice can be made more scientific.
Understanding workers' interests
Populism speaks about the people's camp as if there were no differences within it. But in practice it often advances the interests of one group or class within that camp. It pushes these particular interests as if they were equally everyone's interests.
Let us take the example of black consciousness in the 1970s. Using populism, BC ideologists spoke of a single 'Black Soul'. But in fact they concerned themselves mainly with issues of central concern to 'black soul', blinded them to differences within the camp of the oppressed. In this way they often failed to address the issues of major concern to black workers, or to the rural masses. When such issues like passes or low wages were raised, they were not given enough importance.
Populism downplays organisation
We have said that populism, even progressive populism, has an unscientific understanding of the unity of the people's camp. It tends to base this unity on 'consciousness' or on 'feelings'. For this reason populism often relies on charismatic leaders - that is people who can sway the masses with fine speeches, but with very little content. Such 'leaders' often speak without organizational mandate. For them the possession of a black skin, for instance, or some 'special insight' into the 'black soul' is sufficient as a mandate.
While we must not forget the crucial importance of mobilizing, and of strong fighting talk, the need for organization and democratic participation must also not be omitted. If we are blind to the objective differences within the people's camp, the task of solid organization is impossible. Without a clear understanding of these differences we will not be able to organize the different classes and sectors into a united fighting force. We will also not be able to understand what is of major importance, and what is of secondary importance. Not all groups within the people's camp have the same potential.
Conclusion We have seen that to talk about 'the people' does not mean that one is populist. We are absolutely correct in our broad national democratic movement, to struggle for people's power, and to demand that the people shall govern.
But for this strategy to work we have to ensure that we do not ignore the objective differences within the unity of the broad people's camp. We must avoid both the dangers of ultra-leftism and of populism. Ultra-leftism speaks only of the working class and neglects the task of uniting the broadest popular unity in the national democratic struggle. Populism tends to neglect the crucial leading role of the working class within that popular unity.
From ISIZWE, Journal of the UDF. Vol 1 No 3. November 1986
Workerism is an ideology that has existed at different times in different parts of the world. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, workerism was one of the false approaches that the new, international workers' movement had to deal with and criticize. There were many important debates within workers' parties, trade unions and later with national liberation movements concerning workerism. We in South Africa can learn a great deal from a study of these historical criticisms. In this article we will be more concerned with local versions of workerism.
As the name shows, workerism concentrates more or less narrowly on the working class. Workerism correctly states that this class is the most progressive class in capitalist societies. But workerism then clings to this truth in a very mechanical, one-sided way.
Depending on the time or place, workerism has some or all of the following features. In the first place it is suspicious of all issues that are not "pure" working class issues. What is more, the approach tends to have a very narrow idea of working class concerns. It tends to think mainly of factory-based struggles over wages and working conditions. These are the really important problems for workerism. Insofar as other issues, beyond the point of production (beyond the factory) are taken up, these are seen as secondary matters. This means that workerism tends to under-rate the very important struggle for state power. By state power we mean control over the police, army, courts, parliament and administration.
Workerism also tends to be highly suspicious of any kind of popular alliance and any struggle that involves more than just the working class. In fact nowhere in the world has the working class achieved victory without large numbers of allies among other groups. Where the working class has won power, it has always had to fight against the ideology of workerism, which seeks to isolate the workers. Despite this history, and despite many examples of its weaknesses, workerism still lifts its head from time to time.
In the last 10 to 15 years we have seen the emergence of a fairly strong workerist current in South Africa. Before we look more closely at this tendency, we need to understand the particular, historical conditions that made this development possible.
RE-EMERGENCE OF PROGRESSIVE TRADE UNIONS.
It was the progressive trade unions that were the first genuine mass-based, progressive organizations to emerge in South Africa after the terrible repression of the 1960's. The beginnings of this re-emergence date back to 1973. In that year a 100 000 workers went on strike in the Durban area. This wave of strikes set the pace. Unions began to re-emerge over the next years in all the major urban centers.
The main participants in these developments were:
In considering the development of workerism, this third group needs to be looked at more closely. These young intellectuals made an important contribution in the early years of rebuilding progressive trade unions. They assisted with advice, research, resources and organizational skills. The ideological background of many of these intellectuals was an "academic" or "legal Marxism". This brand of "Marxism" had been learnt from university books, and not been sharpened and tested in mass struggle. (Of course this was not the fault of the intellectuals in question. It was not easy for them to develop progressive ideas, except through small reading groups in the heavy repression of the early 1970's). This "academic marxism' was very European in character. It was not rooted in the South African struggle.
Looking back, one person from that time has said: "I read many thick Marxist books. They were about Britain and France. I knew all about difficult economic theories before I had even heard about the Freedom Charter, or of SACTU's pound-a-day campaign of the 1950's".
As mass union organization grew in the late 1970's, some intellectuals in this group changed and deepened their outlook. They came to understand the history of our struggle, its traditions, and its strategies and tactics. But the outlook of some others continued to be heavily marked by their university background. It was this last group that became the most active ideologists of workerism.
DEBATES WITHIN THE TRADE UNIONS
A number of debates happened in the mid 1970's in and around the new trade unions. One debate concerned the question of trade unions and political involvement. Some argued that the re-emerged trade unions should not get inv olved in politics. They said that trade unions' best chance of survival and of growth was to concentrate narrowly on labour issues.
We must remember in this period of the early 1970's, the apartheid regime and the bosses were going all out to smash the new emerging trade unions. They were trying to impose instead dummy liaison committees. At this time, the progressive trade unions were quite small and inexperienced.
After the massive country wide struggles 1976-1977, the apartheid government retreated on the trade union front. The government and the bosses were scared that the popular militancy, especially of the youth, would "infect" the new trade union movement.
The ruling class abandoned the liaison committees and went for a different approach. They decided to recognize the new trade unions, and in this way they hoped to tame them. They hoped that by recognizing the trade unions it would keep them free from politics.
In fact, this new approach did not really work. Instead it made a lot more space for progressive trade union work. It was, in practice, an important victory for the South African working class