The Black Sash, Vol. 16, No. 5

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Page 1 of 37 Alternative title The Black SashThe Black Sash Author/Creator The Black Sash (Johannesburg) Contributor Duncan, Sheena Publisher The Black Sash (Johannesburg) Date 1973-05 Resource type Journals (Periodicals) Language English Subject Coverage (spatial) South Africa Coverage (temporal) 1973 Source Digital Imaging South Africa (DISA) Relation The Black Sash (1956-1969); continued by Sash (1969-1994) Rights By kind permission of Black Sash. Format extent 35 page(s) (length/size)

Page 2 of 37 SASHVol. 16. No. 5May, 1973Price: 40cThe Black Sash magazine

Page 3 of 37 BLACK SASH OFFICE BEARERSALBANYHEADQUARTERSNational President: Mrs. J. Sinclair,4a-2nd Avenue, Parktown North,Johannesburg. Tel. 42-4649.National Vice-Presidents: Mrs. R. M. CAPE WESTERNJohnston, 86-9th Avenue, High-lands North, Jhb. Tel. 40-1973. Chairman: Mrs. D. Andrews.Secretary: Mrs, M. D. Barker, 11,Twickenham Road, Mowbray,Cape.Mrs. J. Harris, 29-5th Street,Lower Houghton. Tel. 728-2712.Hon. National Secretaries: Mrs. V. Chikin; Mrs. A. van der Riet, 37 Har-vard Buildings, Joubert Street,Jhb. Tel. 23-1032.National- I oT11. Tel.1 18.2. Mrs Beinash itz, 37,Harvard Buildings, Joubert Stxeet,Johannesburg,Magazine Editor: Mrs. S. Dun"', 45-22nd Street, Parkhurst. Johannes-burg. Tel.: 42-9713.Office: 37, Harvard Buildings, JoubertStreet, Johannesburg. Tel, 23-1032.130RDERChairman. fS ecretary : Mrs. D. Streelc,22, Turnberry Avenue, East Lon-don. Tel. 87852.Treasurer: Mrs. B. Sparg, 33 ElizabethCourt, In, 16th Terraca. EastLondon. Tel. 25879. ~~TRANSVAALSecretary : Mrs. V. Sullivan, 3, WarwickRoad, Vincent, East London.Chairman : Mrs. B, Davenport, P.O. Box10 >, Grahamstown.Secretary: P.O. Box 103, Grahamstown.Treasurer: Mrs. M. Burton.0 f fice : (for correspondence) : 310 RoscoBuilding, 105, Main Road, Clare-mont, Cape. Tel. 66-827.NATAL COASTALChairman : Mrs. K, M, Gaynor, 27, Kloof-lands Road, K1aof, Natal. Tel.:Tel.: 77-8853.Secretary : Mrs. Jean Chase, 7 EdinburghCrescent, Westville, Natal. Tel.:85-3623.Treasurer : Mrs. E. Langley , 11 High-bury Court, 311, Ridge Road,Durban. Tel. 881066.NATAL MIDLANDSSecretar, Mrs. M. Corrigall, 71, DerekHall, 176, Loop Street, Pieter-maritzburg.Treasurer: Mrs. Phoebe Brown, P.O. Box71, Hilton, Natal.Chairman: Mrs. G. Dyzenhaus, 108 Hyde-gate, Hyde Park, Sandton. Tel.42-3372.Hon. Secretaries: Mrs. V. Chipkin; Mrs.A. van der Riet, 37 Harvard Build-ings, Joubert Street, Johannesburg.Tel. Office 23-1032.CAPE EASTERNSecretary: Mrs. D. Davis, 196, Main Rd., IWalmer, Port Elizabeth. Treasurer : Mrs. L. Brand.Treasurer: Mrs. A. Bolton, 19, LintonRoad, Mill Park, Port Elizabeth.Tel. 36064.This Magazine, as the official organ of the Black Sash, carriesauthoritative articles on the activitiesof the Black Sash. The leading articles adhere broadly to the policies ofthe organisation, which doesnot, however, necessarily endorse the opinions expressed by thecontributors.All political comment in this issue, except when otherwise stated, by S.Duncan, of 37 HarvardBuildings, Joubert Street, Johannesburg.Cartoons by courtesy of Bob Connolly and the Rand Daily Mail and the DailyDispatch.Published by the Black Sash, 37 Harvard Buildings, Joubert Street,Johannesburg, and printed byMessrs. Pacific Press (Pty.) Ltd., 302 Fox Street, Johannesburg.The Black Saslz, May, 1173 33 Die Swart Serp, Mei 197Office: 37 Harvard Buildings, JoubertStreet, Johannesburg. Telephone23-1032.

Page 4 of 37 CONTENTSMAY, 1973PageEDITORIALTHE FUNCTION OF BLACK POWER ...... 2Dr. T. D. MoodieTHE MORALITY OF DISOBEDIENCE ...... 1Mr. A. du ToitLOVE CAN CONQUER ...... 14Dr. Anthony Barker'WHITES ONLY' SEEMS SO RUDE ...... 18Eleanor Anderson,HANDS OFF OUR UNIVERSITIES ...... 19Laurence GandarCHANGE UUST COME ...... 22Jean SinclairADVICE OFFICESD-ba...... 27J.h~n.,~b,~rg ...... 27Athlone ...... 1 ...... 29NEWS FROM THE REGIONS ...... 31The Black SaA, May, 1973 Die Swart Serp, Mei 1973

Page 5 of 37 specific group of laws) which is undertakenfor moral reasons".Only one essential qualification is missingfrom this definition, namely that the violationof the law must also be an act of protest, itmust be aimed against some requirement, au-thority or practice that it considers to be im-moral or unjust. Otherwise, for example,someone driving in excess of the speed limitsto get a patient as quickly as possible to thehospital would qualify for civil disobedience.He may indeed be violating the traffic lawsand for moral reasons to boot, but he is notdoing so in protest ; and only in the lattercase could it qualify as civil disobedience.This minimal definition is concise enoughan act of civil disobedience is a violation ofthe law, for conscientious reasons, and in pro-test. Yet is can go a long way towards clari-fying its meaning, differentiating it froi~. r-lated phenomena and outlining the prol"c,ua-tic issues.In the first place this definition makes itunambiguously clear that civil disobedienceis and always must be illegal. It may be "po-~A kind of conscientiousviolation of the law whichyet seeks to maintain thevalues that law observancepromotes.'sitive" - the doing of something the lawforbids; or it may be "negative'" - the refus-ing to do something the law commands, butwhether it consists in commission or omis-sion it is legally wrong, and as such entailslegal penalties. "It is always the sort ofthing that can send one to jail" (Hugo Be-dau).The only exception to this is in the case ofwhat has been termed " provisional civil dis-obedience" where the violated law itself maybe set aside, and the violation thus prove tobe vindicated as it were after the event by, forexample, the Supreme Court in terms of theConstitution.To begin with, however, it is equally re-garded as illegal and thus open to legal pun.ishment.The insistence on the essentially illegal na-ture of civil disobedience serves as a majordifferentiation from some related phenomenawith which it is often confused. Thus, in aconstitutional democracy it must be sharplydistinguished from all forms of legal andrightful protests, political opposition and ord-inary dissent.One who breaks an unjustlaw must do so openly, lov-ingly and with a willing-ness to accept the penal-ty.,In the words of Carl Cohen "all parades,assemblies, marches, picket lines, and otherpublic demonstrations that abide by the lawhowever vehement or unusual are not civildisobedience. It is a serious mistake to classall public demonstrations of protest as civildisobedience".If in the course of some demonstration amunicipal by-law or traffic regulation is vio-lated it cannot be considered as civil disobedi-ence unless done deliberately and in protest.In terms of this understanding of civil dis-obedience it would thus follow that the stu-dent gatherings and demonstrations in CapeTown on the steps of the Cathedral and of theJames' Hall last June, whether technicallywithin the law or not, were not intended ascivil disobedience but as rightful protests.Certainly theye were not deliberately lay-ing themselves open to legal penalties. It isof course a different matter altogether in. anon-democratic state which does not recognsethe right to protest - in terms of our mini-mal definition it would then seem that undersuch circumstances all conscientious protestwould amount to illegal civil disobedience.A similar position obtains with regard toconscientious objection. In many countriesthis has come to be a recognised procedure tolay claim to an exempted status from the re-quirements of the law, particularly concerningmilitary conscription. If granted, the consci-entious objector attains a legally recognisedstatus within the law. His position is thusradically different from the civil disobedientwhose act of protest, however conscientious, isessentially illegal.Again the position is different in a countrythat does not wish to recognise conscientiousobjectors as a separate category. However, itremains at least possible for it still to do sowhereas in the case of ordinary civil disobedi-ence it is a major problem whether a state canever be expected to deliberately recognise oortolerate it.The Black Sash, May, 1973 10 Die Swart Serg, Mei 1971

Page 6 of 37 A "legal right to civil disobedience" wouldseem to amount to a contradiction in terms,and yet there may well be good reasons forsomehow recognising that it is not just illegal,but also conscientious.In the second place, then, our minimal defi-nition of civil disobedience makes it clear thatalthough it is illegal it should not be equatedwith crime or law evasion. An act of civil dis-obedience is a violation of a law, but it is not,or not merely, a crime. How can this be?For a start we should note that this must liea moral or political distinction ; in a technicalsense all violations of criminal laws are ofcourse criminal violations. From a moral andalso from a political paint of view, however,we cannot consider all violations of the law ona par as all equally criminal.There is a basic difference between an actviolating a law with the purpose, for example,of gaining some private benefit at the expenseof others and an illegal act motivated by moralad '..,n _cientious reasons. The motivated is in amoral sense as well a crime, and normally thecriminal would hope to get away with his ille-gal gains if the crime is not to be self-defeating.On the othed hand, the man forced by con-science to an illegal act of civil disobedience isnot out for personal gain but knowingly incursthe penalties of the law, and often that of pub-lic wrath and abuse as well. I must emphasisethat to say that an act of civil disobedience isconscientious is not to say that it is justifiableor right; the moral reasons for which some-one may be acting are often quite subjective,arbitrary. foolish or inappropriate.It would be foolhardy to say that in everyconflict of conscience and the law, conscienti-ous violations of the law cannot simply beclassed in the same category as ordinary crime.In this connection we must also make a fur-ther distinction between purely moral disobe-dience and civil disobedience proper. It is pos-tconceive of a direct conflict betweenothe requirements of a law and someone-s purelypersonal moral standards : he violates the lawbecause be cannot comply in good conscience.He does not wish to change or eliminate thelaw as such; he does not want others with per-haps different moral principles to violate it likewise; his conscientious violation of the law isbasically a private act and it is quite incidentalto it whether either the authorities or otherpeople come to know of it.He simply has to do what to him personallyis morally right, and damn the consequences -certainly strategic and tactical considerationscan play no role in his conscientious decision.Usually, however, the conscientious violationis of a different nature. In violating the lawfor moral reasons, I may be implying that itit not merely wrong for me to comply with it,but for others as well. I am thus not merelycontrasting the demands of the law with myprivate conscience, but I am rather apppealingto some shared morality. If I have a moralobligation to disobey, so have you and so haveall of us - that is, all of us who share thesemoral reasons.It is characteristic of civil disobedience, asdistinct from purely moral disobedience, thatits conscientious nature is not to be merely pri-vately judged but that its ends are "formulatedwith a view to making them morally legitimateto onlookers and to the public" says ChristianBay. While it xnay thus be hypothetically pos-sible to say that the criminal is acting in "mor-al" disobedience in accordance with some per-verted morality his crime cannot be an act ofcivil disobedience.The same difference between the peculiarillegal nature of civil disobedience and ordin-ry crime appears if we reflect on the essentialelement of protest contained in our minimaldefinition. In an act of civil disobedience I amnot merely violating the stipulations of the law,I am contesting its very authority. Directly orindirectly my disobedience of the law is aimedat getting it changed or repealed.It is thus of the essence of my violation thatit should be brought home to the authoritiesand the public at large, otherwise it fails as aprotest. Thus it is possible that I may in ig-norance of it contravene a law, and this wouldthen constitute a crime, but an act of civil dis-obedience cannot consist in an ignorant viola-tion of, or a mere non-compliance with, thelaw. It must be openly insisted on as a con-scious and deliberate violation, because the dis-obedience is an essential and not merely acci-dental element of it.In the case of a crime it is natural to hideboth the act and the agent from the publicview, and if it perhaps takes place in public,like a bank robbery, the criminal will seek toevade the enforcement of the law - except inan abnormal case where the crime is a meremeans towards attaining the punishment as anend.An act of civil disobedience, on the otherhand, must in a certain sense always be pub-lic. "What seems to be essential is that theThe Black Sash, May, 1973 11 Die Swart Serp, Mei 1973

Page 7 of 37 violator makes no attempt to hide from theauthorities or the community that it is he whois committing the act, ar the nature of the acthe is committing; indeed, he must deliberatelyseek to make these known. When one attemptsto hide such facts., we quite naturally regardthe act as an attempt to .Wdethelaw" (andnot to protest it), says F. Berger.4The civil disobedientdoes, while the revolution-ary does not, accept thelegitimacy of the establish-ed authorities.'In the case of a crime the accused may pleadinnocent. and seek some legal defence, even apurely technical one- or plead guilty and sub-mit to the penalties. In the case of civil dis-obedience the defendant must plead guilty (ex-cept in the special case of `'provisional civil dis-obedience") and lie may personally- submit tothe penalties, but he cannot offer a legal de-fence in terms of the violated law because he isprecisely protesting the authority of that law.His violation of the law is technically a crimebut basically an act of political defiance.At this point we come in the third place tothe crucial distinction between civil disobe-dience and such other political categories as.opposition, rebellion or revolution. In termsof our minimal definition civil disobedience isdifferentiated from all legal forms of politicalopposition by being illegal, but it is also con-trasted to revolution and anarchism as being aselective rather than a general violation of thelaw.It is understood as a violation of and a pro-test against specific law or laws, not against alllaw or the state as such. Unlike the revolu-tionary who lays a total claim to primacy, andaims at a complete transformation of the politi-cal order, civil disobedience may be describedas ``the acting out of a partial claim against thestate" and it is thus characterised by the pur-suit of limited public ends by way- of carefullychosen and limited means.There is here a basic paradox in the relationbetween civil disobedience and the law. It vio-lates the law (a specific law) and yet in anothersense it submits to the law (the legal order).Civil disobedience may thus be described as akind of conscientious violation of the lawwhich yet seeks to maintain the values that lawobservance promotes.Characteristically it may thus take the formof deliberately violating the law and then sub-mitting to arrest without resistance. This ismade very clear in Dr. Martin Luther King'sLetter from Birmingham Jail": "One whobreaks an unjust law must do so openly, lov-ingly, and with a willingness to accept the pen-alty. I submit that an individual who breaksa law that conscience tells him is unjust, andwho willingly accepts the penalty of imprison-ment in order to arouse the conscience of thecommunity over its injustice, is in reality et-pressing the highest respect for the law." -However, though it is important to estab-lish and maintain this general differentiationbetween the basic aims of civil disobedienceand revolution, it is not always possible to dis-tinguish them clearly in any given case.4n a variety of differentways the issues of civilobedience and disobedi-ence are increasinglybeing pressed upon us.~There are at least two sets of complicatingfactors. First, we are usually not confrontedwith a whole revolution or a complete cam-paign of civil disobedience all at once. but withan on-going series of events. A revolution mayeventually culminate in a popular uprising ora direct attempt to overthrow the government.but this is usually preceded by an extensiveprior campaign in which selective violations ofthe law may well have played a part.In the case of a specific violation of a la-it may thus prove very difficult to say whetherit is a revolutionarv act or an act of limitedcivil disobedience. In fact, it may well be bothat the same time. Thus, for example, Gandhi'slimited campaign of civil disobedience againstthe Salt Acts in 1930-1 was also part of hislong-range revolutionary objective to end Bri-tish rule in India. On the other hand, thisdoes not mean that every selective violation ofthe law is also a revolutionary act .lt dependson the overall political objectives of he viola-tor - and ive may note that in terms of theseobjectives the civil disobedient, unlike the re-volutionary- is required to keep careful controlover the consequences of his pursuit by limitedmeans of limited ends.It should also be emphasised that a crucialpart is played by the nature of the response bythe authorities. The government may chooseThe Black Sash, May, 1973 12 Die Swnrt Serp, Me`b 1973

Page 8 of 37 to regard any challenge to its constituted auth-ority, however selective, as implicitly revolu-tionary, and deal with it accordingly or it mayaccept it as being a merely partial claim to pri-macy, and somehow learn to live with it evenif it cannot be just tolerated. The distinctionbetween civil disobedience and revolutionaryintent is to a certain extent dependent on itsmutual observance.The second way in which the distinction be-tween civil disobedience and revolution may becomplicated is connected with the problematicrelation between the established governmentof the day and the state. W a have said thateven in violating a specific law the civil dis-obedient remains bound to the general legalorder of society. But what precisely is thisgeneral order? Is it the system of laws issuedby the government of the day? Sometimes theNEW IDEAS DEPARTMENT By Bob Connollydistinction between civil disobedience and re-volution is indeed made in these terms.Thus Carl Cohen writes that "'the civil dis-obedient does, while the revolutionary does not,accept the general legitimacy of the establishedauthorities."On the other hand, we may wish to distin-guish between our recognition of the legitimacyot c government 0, the day and our obliga-f thtion to the state; we may wish to contest theauthority of a comprehensive set of laws forthe sake of what we regard as the proper legalorder of society.Under these circumstances it becomes ex-tremely difficult if not impossible to distin-guish the implications of our fundamental civilobligation to obey not the government but thestate from that of the aims of a revolution.SPOT THE AGITATORS 8y Bob ConnollyThe Black Sash, May, 1973 13 Die Swart Serp, Mei 1973

Page 9 of 37 LOVE CAN CONQUERDR. ANTHONY BARKERDr. Barker, superintendent of the Charles Johnson Memorial Hospital, Nqutu,delivered his talk to students at the Federal Seminary, Alice, in March.When the enthusiastic young man, recordedin the gospel, offered to join Jesus amonghis disciples, he received the daunting reply"Foxes have earths, birds in the sky have nests,but the Son of Man has nowhere to call hisown." For him, who we see increasingly as aliberator, th ntral point of comfortosee - was no -r , 'urity which he could call "home.''This gives him added authority - not thathe needs much - as we learn from him in thepain of our modern society. For many of ourpeople are thus deprived of home and familyand are forced into a similar, though this timecompulsory, restlessness.For them, also, driven by economic forcesand Government edicts, there is no place theycan call their own. No matter what cosy wordswe use (and "homeland" sounds much moreattractive than the older "reserve" ), the factremains that a homeland is a place where noman can live for 1=it than a few months to-gether without the sy of getting out of it.Survival on the homelands is, at present, im-possible for the majority of their inhabitants.Seeing the great courage with which Blackmen face adversity, the cheerfulness of thepoor and unexpectant, White people are dispos-ed to comfort themselves that Blacks don'tfeel the anguish of separation so much as theWhites. They used to say much the same ofthe fox's attitude to being chased by huntsmenand hounds - that the fox enjoyed it, thebrisk run over the fields, the crisp, frosty au-tumn air etc.I have even heard it said that Black moth-ers don't feel the death of their babies so in-tensely as White women, for, after all, they areso used to it. These arrogant and cruel assump-tions were, in the case of migratory labour.made against the White background of a nar-row concept of family common among m)people. For us, in our origins, family wasfather, mother and the children, with, per-haps, an occasional visit to grandpa, or fromdim, foreign aunts. This was my Englishhome, glorified into my castle; my inalienableright as a man, my impregnable stronghold.How limited this came to appear when firstI met the wider, more generous concepts offamily among the Zulu people! Ignorant Iwas when I first saw this, and only too ignor-ant I have remained, but I have come a littleto understand, I think. Here was a sort ofsuper-family, a network of relationships ofimmense subtlety, having a dictionary full ofties to cover the mosaic of relationship. Itboiled down to a man's having many motherand many fathers, and a kinship of siblinggreater than any I have known.Home was an idea rich in sentiment :`iKhaya' a yearning on the lips of the dying.a continued longing for all who must be awa~-from it. The often tumbled-down realitv ofits buildings affirmed that for our neighbourshome was no attachment to a given house,but a spiritual and tender association of peo-ple and cattle and ceremonies and securities.all respectfully tied to the former generations.to its living and its dead inhabitants.Thus, far from being a little thing my peo-ple did, to lever the workman off the blockof his family, and separate him for monthstogether from this more generous association.it became obvious that it was a very grievousassault indeed, creating the structure of mig-ratory labour.The apparent good humour of the workerowes more to determination and fortitudethan to any supposed joke at the centre ofthe system. It is not, after all, funny- to bedeprived of your woman, or cheated of yourchildren. Yet White men have counted itsuch. His determination, at whatever cost.that the Black man should work in his fac-tories or down his mines has made the Whiteman insensitive to all this pain and eager tobelieve in the Black man's good humouredcontent with the bread and circuses with whichhe was rewarded.I'm no very profound historian, but see,within the household of KwaZulu, where Ihave been personally tolerated for almostthree decades now, the central attack beingalways upon the family and the home. TheThe Black Sash, May, 1973 1 1 Die S.-t Serp, Mex 1973

Page 10 of 37 last 100 years - which h, be,, hehe te n;an _ s s~.wn t =,,,yf Whi h" his thedetermined burning of the King's great placeduring the English War of 1879 -the warof Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift - to the im-position of the poll tax on the Zulus by thesettler government of Natal in 1905.Two motivations were apparent in thisIevy : to flush the people out of their homesinto the mines and rudimentary industries ofthe country, and to incite the Zulus to theyzse of force, the better to teach them, onceand for all, a much-needed lesson.The reaction of the Zulus was violent, andviolently dealt with. From the -Nlpanza val-ley came the chieftain Bambatha who soughtto win royal assent from 'hishisresistance. It didn't work, of course. Therecvas vacillation, uncertainty and treachery tobring the rebellion down, and they all playedtheir part in that sad episode. The final bom-bardment of Bambatha's men in the Mom,Gorge, 16 hours of pounding from field gunson the trapped warriors, is a memory yet"the bones are white at Nkandla'', they say.And after the guns were silent the patternsof life as we know them today were prettywell laid down. True, the 1936 lands actsprovided for more land eventually to be ac-corded to the Black people, some of which,even today, is still unreleased, but the over-a11 pattern of White ownership of land and re-sources has been entrenched now for morethan 60 years.'4~'e know how things have gone. We knowthat even now, land is the prime need of ourpeople if they are to survive, let alone enterthe limited liberties of homeland government.The provision or withholding of land is thetest that homeland leaders have applied to thesincerity of central government. We cannotsay that the test has yet been passed."If you want to love White men," says ourisazi, Bishop Zulu, "you should not talk tothem about land". But we cannot see ourproblem as separated from this issue, and Itherefore risk your scorn for having had thepresumption, as a White man, to raise thesubject at all.Again I become parochial. I could, per-haps,give you a great sweeping view of home-land life but this would 15e less accurate andprobably Iess convincing than my talkingabout my home, my part of KwaZulu, theNqutu District. It is by no means unique-I only wish it were and its sad story can doubt-Iess be surpassed by many sad stories of yourown experience.We have at Nqutu some 700 square milesof country, beautiful, eroded and heavily da-maged by the years of its occupation. It ishilly country, with many rocks and cliffsrendering it unproductive, even without re-membering the overcrowding which is an in-creasing feature of its habitation. In 1945,when I went there, there were just 32 000people in Nqutu, living the more or less tra-ditiona. life of their forbears which time hadnot yet totally effaced. Fifteen years later thenumber had risen to 46 000, and we began toget worried, for plainly our land could notbeBy his lveleof tillage1970 th.number was 80 000 and thisis our problem now, that no one can live inour homeland, by no means, or under no sys-tem of improvement in agriculture than couldbe thought out.Population density reveals this clearlyenough. Over our whole area this works outat around 100 per square mile. If you takethe arable bit, that is, not counting the rocks,it is around 500 per square mile, and this inan area of the country where it takes, to keepthe ordinary White farmer in that state ofliving to which he is accustomed, 1 000 hec-tares or so.What has caused this frightening situation?To some extent it is our own fault at the hos-pital, for we have been signally successful inour maternity work and in holding in lifethese little ones. It is now, after many yearsof effort, as safe for our Zulu women to havetheir babics as it has been for many years forthe White women. This is a great achieve-ment and productive of much happiness andtrust. But of course it does make mattersworse.There was a time, not so long ago, whenabout one-third of all babies born alive diedbefore the age of walking. This was true inNqutu, and it was true over the greater part ofthe land where Black people lived and died in-orda h the prescribed To-~c it, needv ereut ev=,,a. this is wholly diff re, butespecially, we think, at Nqutu, because, likeother areas where hospitals have operated formany years, it has been possible for a few todo so much.Natural increase therefore accounts forsome of the advance in over-population, butit does not tell the full story. We are a hostarea for resettlement, with our Mondlo amongThe Black Sash, May, 19723 15 Die Swart Serp, Mei 1973

Page 11 of 37 the first of such rural townships to be estab-lished. We did not hear much of Mondlo,when compared with the birth pangs of LimeHills, and this may be in part my fault. Likemany of these settlements nothing was saidto herald their coming, and even as the Dis-trict Surgeon I was not informed of the arri-val of some 3 000 dwellers in loaned tents thatbecame part of my cure in 1963.Again, we were inexperienced in what wasinvolved and more complacent then than weare today in the acceptance of Governmentalacts. So I, and others like me, were caughtunawares by these movements to Mondlo.where today there are almost 8 000 souls anda promise of many times that number to comeif the apartheid dream is to be fully impIe-mented.Natural increase. Mondlo, do these whollyaccount for the huge growth in our popula-tion? There is another factor, and that is theclearance of squatter-labour on Natal farmswhich at long last is coming to pass. The oldsystems prevailed in Natal for a long time.Squatters had their homes and limited graz-ing in return for six months' labour on thefarmer's land, his family in the farmer's kit-chen.This has rightly been outlawed today, butironically it has made our lot and the lot ofthe country-dwellers more difficult still. Toldto "go back to the homelands" these illequipped and poor people have often had todo what deal they can with local chiefs (someof whom have exploited the squatters) to geta foot in the reserves. There have been estab-lished in our district two unofficial settle-ments in this way, at Vulamehlo (though thepeople do not call it that) near Nqutu villageand on the old gold-mining farius near Non-dweni, 16 km to the east of Nqutu.As unofficial settlements the people haveno security, the Government no obligation toprovide services. Rural slum conditions, withcompetition for water and gardens leading tounseemliness which is only to be expected.Beside the men and women who find somefoothold in these unofficial settlements thereare others who just infiltrate, with relativesperhaps, who already have land in the neigh-bourhood. -So here we have a depressingly familiarstory ,one well known to you as I should sup-pose, and one which can be retold over manyparts of our land. If we could forget for onemoment the human problem (and I hope wenever can do this, for else we are lost indeed)we see this as an equation which can neverbalance, a sum that will never some out.To hope that somehow, in good time, thiswill work itself out is but to fool ourselves.All we could do, all the patching-up imagin-able, could never make Nqutu district viablein terms of an older concept to which we havebeen hereto committed.And if not possible at Nqutu, are we toexpect it will work in other places as well?Can we look to the restoration of our formerways, and the expectations of older days? Ido not think so and I do not think anyonethinks so. So what do our people do? Whatcan they do?They must offer the only gift they have tothe gods of the counting-house: they mustsell their labour, the strength of their backsand the skill of their hands. With the bestwill in the world there are too few border in-dustries, too few homeland occupations toutilise this great black gift. Nor, startingfrom where we are at Nqutu - which is rightat the bottom - do I foresee the creation ofwork opportunities in anything but the small-est degree in time to receive the burgeoningpopulation which is yearly added to our num-ber. We are wholly innocent of border indus-tries, and the only homeland industry we haveis the hospital itself. At least we are the em-ployers of 450 people and that makes of us asignificant social and economic factor in a Piti-fully poor environment. So. to survive, ourfolk must go outside, beyond our boundaries,and join the great mass - Francis Wilson'says every second worker you meet - of miteratory labourers.We know something of the conditions ofthese men and `eomen as they work in thecities and on the farms of our land, and if wedon't know already we can gain all the factsfrom Doctor Wilson's masterly collation ofknowledge. W e know how many are to live inhostels and how few to live with their wivesand children. We know the appalling harvestof loneliness, despair and degradation whichstem from the system. We know the hypo-crisy of a society that preaches the sanctity ofthe home (unlike those villainous commun-ists) and then denies men and women thechance to found anything of the kind. Weknow the humbug of Christian marriage des-troyed by laiv from a parliament that beginsits business bi- invoking the assistance of theGod of love.The Black Sash, May, 1973 16 Die Saoart Serp, Mei 1976'

Page 12 of 37 Useless to excuse ourseives : to say thatmigratory labour exists in France and Ger-many and America. It does, and nobody isproud of it, anywhere. But where it exist,outside our country it is one form of employ-ment among other alternatives. It is not sub-ject to the ban on wives coming with the mig-rant, and above all it is not statutory, builtinto the system, whereby it becomes obliga-tory as a form of labour. and binding as aform of employment. So I don't think thereis anything quite so disastrous with which tocompare migratory labour in South Africa, orby which comparison we can excuse ourselvesfor having developed it into the fine art it ishere.Most studies of migratory labour are madefrom the employer's end. and the effects it hasupon the migrant himself and the male worldhe inhabits in mine or industry. Its effectsat the rural end are quite as disastrous. Forour women folk, the absence of their men hasprofound emotional results. Among the un-married there is a growing devaluation ofthat dignified and commodious sacrament. Ifyou are a young girl, are going to lose yourman in any event. of what use to marry andgo over to your in-laws home as a bride when.by having your baby at home - as the say-ing goes - you can remain with your muchmore permissive mother who will, in all prob-ability, not expect you to become her drudge,her Newer of wood and her drawer of water.Among the lob olo'd and married the re-peated departure of the husband throws anidentical stress upon childbearing. If mar-riage is to be no sweet rhythm blessed sexual-ity, having babies is the only possible outletfor the love which se . sed - ~hus, t~,is 'I' "utc the migr nt's return is th tim eim' of arh o,( pe for a new pregnancy, ensuring manymonths, gestational and through infancy. inwhich the wife's emotions can be reasonabh-fulfilled. There is a popular song to thiseffect which I heard sung at a party only theother night by one of our student nurses : atweet little, dear little baby- - love in themorning, love in the noonday- and love all thetime, and so on.And woe to the bride whose husband re-turns to his work and leaves nothing behind!She, poor soul, can hardly bear this. Psycho-logically the menses stop, the abdomen beginsto swell, she is pregnant, but without a baby.This false pregnancy or pseudocyesis, is re-grettably common among our women.The Plach Sash, lblacy, 1970;We think of the work men do by traditiongiven over to women. We think of the ab-sence of men to plough, to care for the cattle.~'e think of the deprivation of children,growing without fatherly discipline, becomingunmanageable. a burden to their mothers anda problem to their teachers. It certainly is norecipe for rural reform that the strongest andthe best are away so often and for so long,and there is little possibility of serious changetowards betterment while this migration per-sists.We do not need to be told these evils. Weknow them, and that only too well. Weknow this is a system devised by White men.for the benefit of White men, and we knowthat, had we the power to change it, we shouldnot even wait until tomorrow to put an endto it. and begin again to live as men and asthe heads of our families. But we have notthe power. We are left - as we so often are- with the dilemma- do we seek to tinkeri h this ci at we have, putting it rightt so ci thzbit by bit. so far as we are able? Or do wego for radical change, the upsetting of a cruelsystem that we know will persist as long as itpays?And what has the church to say. for thiswas the subject of my talk that you gave meto speak to? The church must listen to itsmaster, and learn to be truthful to his teach-ing even if this takes her into the unaccus-tomed paths of revolutionary thinking. Andwhat Jesus sate s is "don't you go separatingwhat God has joined". And noble ideas likenot using other people for our own ends, butbeing ourselves, who would rule, the servantsof all.Clearly the church has not, at least untilrecently, bothered to think this out very muchat all, and this is evidence enough (if wewanted any more evidence) that it was thepowerful end of the church speaking ratherthan the man in the pew, or he who was toopoor to sit in a new at all. Today it is be-coming a little bit fashionable to talk aboutthe evils of the migratory system, and we areglad of this, but who is doing the talkingNot, I think, those who have known the hope-lessness of such gabbling from their positionas migratory labourers. For these poor onesthere is little satisfaction in the statementsof Whites. waking at last to the enormity ofthe system.Little wonder there is no satisfaction at allamong Black Christians in such statements.Little ~:-onder that the cry of many here -1: Die Swart Serp, Mei xsr*

Page 13 of 37 and one in particular, with us today - is thatmy people get their foot off your people'sneck. But I plead this far: that change oc-curs best against a high level of expectancy,and I therefore welcome all thought withinthe church, from management or labour orfrom liberal or illiberal quarters which showsup the exceedingly sinful nature of this sin.I both welcome it and encourage it, and Isay to the White man : brother you are justlearning what these have kno"n all along.Do not, therefore seek to teach them fromyour high position, and do not expect themto applaud your tardy steps towards greaterjustice. Put your own house in order. Areyou such an exploiter? If so: exploit nomore. And to the Black Christians I'd sayknow the power which is even now beinggrasped by Black hands. Study it to use itwisely and for the benefit of your brethren.And do not despise any man, nor hold hisunderstanding cheap, even if he is White. Itmay be that he has not had your advantageof belonging to the human race born in uponhim quite so satisfyingly as has happened toyou lately. It may be he's the one who is feel-ing rejected now, and you've known this longenough not to want it to happen to anyoneeven to those who have been your enemiesthrough stupidity, blindness and insensitivity.If Christ has no word of reconciliation tobg mes,rin with his age of liberation, then weare of all men the most wretched. But I be-lieve he has broken down the middle wall ofpartition, and love can conquer everything,even my shame and your anger."Whites only" seems so rudeELEANOR ANDERSONApril 7, 1973, and here I am at Jan Smuts Airport to meet the kids, homefrom their seasideholiday. Fearing to be late, I have arrived early and so have time to standand stare awhile. (This is a useful activity and should be tasted more often.)The place is a-seeth with people carrying suitcases and tickets and babiesand bundles, andwearing intent expressions so you know they are already mentally up in theair and off totheir several destinations.An Indian woman with a suitcase hurries along to the ladies' toilet, thenhalts in some per-plexity on seeing that it is intended "For Europeans." Not for her.Carefully, l do not look at her, yet I wonder how she feels about thisunobliging little sign.South Africa often claims that in an emergency all racial bars cometumbling down, but whetheran Indian woman's needs to spend a penny is regarded as an emergency, Iwouldn't know.Odd. The White South African recoils at the idea of sharing a lavatory witha Black SouthAfrican, yet is quite happy to have its White infant or its elderly ailingparent cared for byBlack hands. (Africans are so patient. )What I do know is that this sign represents what the Black personexperiences in an apart-heid society. Doors. Benches. Trains, Buses. Hostels. Quite a list. Petty Ithink not.WHITES ONLY. It hits you between the eyes. And I'm damned if I could tellyou exactlywhat is so superior about the White hand, foot, ox, arse, brain, restauranttable, post officedoor or church pew. I do not like this sign. Neither, I suppose, does theIndian woman. In`fact, madam, be you an inhabitant of this land or a stranger from afar, Ibeg your pardon.'South Africa claims that she is loosening the apartheid stays whichsuffocate our society. Afterall, have not a few African people recently attended a "White" church? Wasthere not cordialracial mixing at the Games? Are we not considering wage increases on anon-racial basis?Yes? Is the answer yes? If so, what's my hurry? at I am bitching about? Isuppose mytrouble is that I hate "Whites only" signs. They ~Lh so rude.The Black Sash, May, 1973 18 Die Swart Serp, Mei 1973

Page 14 of 37 "Hands off our Universities"- LAURENCE GANDARThis speech was given to students at the University of Natal on March 1, twodays after the banning of the eight Nusas leaders.It is clear from the great outcry that has al-ready been raised over the Government'slatest action against a group of students thatthe public, or at any rat", a large part of it,has once again found itself deeply shocked atthe way this Government deals with people itdoes not like.My own sense of shock, however, is quali-fied in two respects. First, I am in no waysurprised at what has happened. Some suchaction as this was completely predictable inthe light of the Government's known attitudeto Nusas, and of its appointment of a com-mission of inquiry into the activities of cer-tain organisations. Nusas was obviously themain target.Secondly, much as I deplore the banningsand the injury they will do to some fine youngpeople, I almost welcome what has happened.For in its haste and in its anxiousness to hurtNusas and crush the spirit out of it, the Gov-ernment has unwittingly uncovered the canof worms that is its thinking on security mat-ters. It has not only overstepped the mark-as it invariably does in this field - but atlast it can now plainly be seen to have over-stepped the mark.In the past, as everyone knows, the Gov-ernment has steadfastly refused to give rea-sons for banning or restricting people.. Ithas merely hinted darkly that something snis-ter was afoot which it could unfortunately notreveal because of security requirements, andall too many members of our torpid, bemus-ed electorate satisfied themselves with thattired old adage : There's no smoke without afire.Well, thank goodness, all that has gone bythe board. Feeling no doubt that the "portof a Parliamentary commission would giverespectability to the action contemplatedagainst Nusas, Mr. Vorster -our prize after-dinner speaker turned Prime Minister, whosehumour is such a notable contribution to thenation's heavy industry - based himself onthe findings of the commission and the bann-ings followed immediately after.Now, I believe this is one of the most un-wise of the many things that Mr. Vorster hasdone. For the public can now judge for it-self, and for the first time, the appropriatenessor otherwise of the very severe penalties thathave been visited upon the eight banned stu-dent leader.I believe, furthermore, that when the pub-lic has had time to study and digest the find-ings in question it will have no hesitation inconcluding that they provided no justifica-tion at all for the savage action taken.It is true. of course, that only an interimreport has so far been issued and that the fullreport will contain much more detail andbacking for the commission's findings. I amsure, too, that it will show things said anddone by some Nusas people that you or Imight feel could have been better not said ornot done at all.But this is neither here nor there, for noneof us is infallible and one has only to examinethe statements and actions of our cabinet Min-isters over the past 12 month to realise thatthe fault o injudiciousness is pretty wide-spread.No, the crux of the matter is this, and it isas inescapable as it is revealing. In the firstplace, the commission could find no shred ofevidence that any of the eight student leaderswere in any way-involved with communism-a point repeatedly stressed by a rather defen-sive Mr. '~Iarais Steyn - and yet action waspromptly taken against them in terms of theSuppression of Communism Act. Has themisuse of this thoroughly evil piece of legis-lation ever been exposed?S...Y, th:o ~=i,ee 'sion specificallyfound that Nusas has up to now remainedwithin the law in its activities and certainlynone of its findings indicates anything evenfaintly unlawful. Let us look at this moreclosely.It is not. for example, unlawful to be "in-tensely active politically". Would that therewere more people who took a keen interest inpolitics. It is not unlawful to choose not toThe Black Sash, Map, 1973 19 Die Swart Serp, Mei 197&

Page 15 of 37 support any of the existing political parties.Indeed, it is sometimes hard to imagine peoplewho do support the two main parties, especi-ally in the light of their miserable perform-ances on this particular issue.It is not unlawful to try to bring aboutchange that will result in a replacement ofthe existing order in South Africa. I thoughteveryone agreed that the existing order can-not continue indefinitely. Even Dr. Ver-woerd and other Nationalist leaders have saidthat baasskap and race discrimination havesomehow got to be got rid of in South Africa.It is not unlawful to be one of a smallgroup of activists who shape the policies andactions of an organisation. Indeed it is per-fectly normal. I would be prepared to betthat less than five per cent of Nationalist sup-porters are actively involved in party affairsand that the party's leadership goes out of itsway to ensure that control of the party re-mains in the hands of "kindred spirits."Ask Dr. Albert Hertzog and Mr. Jaap Ma-rais how far they got in trying to steer theparty in another direction.It is not illegal to receive moral and finan-cial support from overseas. The Nationaliststhemselves receive at least moral support fromabroad and from some very curious quarterssuch as the lunatic fringe John Birch Societyin the United States and all sorts of Whiteracialists in the Deep South.It is not illegal, either, to create what thecommission describes as situations aimed atemotionally stimulating the broad mass ofstudents. Apart from the fact that most in-stances of student unrest have taken place asa reaction to provocative or iniquitous Gov-ernment measures, there is nothing unusualabout taking steps to arouse the enthusiasm ofone's following.What about the regular displays of Afri-kaner tribalism that take place on occasionssuch as the Day of the Covenant ~vhen scenest eh Boer %,on,entr ion canips are --'t~e of ~tf=el a~d.thect I is re-e 'Oodcalled? fa that things -~i`f`t;n saidh' 0on these occasions that are hurtful or offen-sive to the English-speaking section and to,our Black fellow citizens does not -ake them;illegal. So much for the findings.It seems that the commission made its dras-tic recommendation of action against the stu-dents on two grounds. First, it was felt thatthere was a danger of incitement leading, to"student violence." So let's look at what hap-pened last year when violence followed theepisode on the Cathedral steps in Cape Town.As a result scores of students appeared incourt. Virtually all of them were found notguilty and discharged and it was the policewho were, in effect, reprimanded for exceed-ing their authority in sailing into the students.There's your student violence.Secondly, the commission appears to havebeen gravely disturbed by a resolution passedat the last Nusas congress in Grahamstown.It felt that this indicated that Nusas had goneover to openly propagating illegal activity andthat this in turn was helping to create the cli-mate for revolution.In case anyone has been impressed by thisvery curious conclusion, I would like to readyou the text of the resolution in question."We resolve as the National Union of SouthAfrican Students to uphold those rightsthrough positive and public action at alltimes expressly and intentionally peaceful inthe event of attacks on our rights. We ex-press our hope, however, that the law may re-main such that we can continue to operatewithin it. And we further resolve that in theevent of the removal of the fundamental andlawful right of the National Union to meettogether to discuss and decide on issues andto take, what prior to the removal was law-ful, action in terms of these decisions in theservice of both student and society we shallignore such removal and take the conse-quences ofsuch stand."That was the resolution and I now want toinvite you to consider whether you think thatis in any way helps to create a climate for re-volution. Apart from the fact that it is verysimilar in spirit to resolutions that have beenadopted by some churches in Rhodesia andSouth Africa - namely that if restrictions areimposed on them that conflict with their dutyto function as churches they may feel obligedto disregard such restrictions - this Nusasresolution is about as revolutionary as theaction of the man who says "I'm darned if I'llpay that parking fine - I'll go to jail in-stead.'"'Small wonder that Mrs. Helen Suzman hassaid of the commission's report that it is amass of insinuations, suppositions and deduc-tions from suppositions. It is also no won-der that the Government has steered well clearof testing these allegations in the coourts.No, the latest bannings have taken place notbecause the victims were engaged in further-The Black Sash, May, 1973 20 Die Swart Serp, Mei 1973

Page 16 of 37 ing communism - the commission found noevidence of this whatsoever - and not Ie-cause they had transgressed the law in anyway. The commission found no evidence ofthis either. Nor is it that their activities re-present a threat to the national security -the commission's findings on this point are soflimsy and far-fetched as to be almost deris-ory. No, the bannings have taken place be-cause this is the way- the Governmnt tradi-tionally deals with the political opponents itdislikes most.One has only to recall what happened in theearly sixties when the Government killed theLiberal Party, not by banning it outright -it does not look good to ban a legitimate poli-tical party - but by systematically destroy-ing its leadership. It hopes to do the same.with Nusa.Arising out of all this, I now want to makethis submission. From what we have learnedof the Government's reasons for these bann-ings, are we not entitled seriously to questionthe validity and justice of a great many of thebannings and restrictions it has imposed inthe past?I have myself always believed that most ofthose were unnecessary and unjust. Perhapsthe public at large will now begin to suspectthis too. The expressionless mask of statesecurity has slipped;y little; we can now seesomething of the ucountenance beneath.Fin ally., as a former student o this univer-sity and as an English-speaking person, Ideeply resent the arrogant cultural imperialismwhich the Afrikaner Nationalists are pursu-ing in this South Africa that we all share.The fact is that the Nationalists are impos-ing their cultural norms and values upon useby administrative forc. If the Nationalistswant to run the Afrikaans universities a cer-tain way that's up to them. If they choose toinsist on short back and sides, wearing tiesand jackets to lectures, saying "sir" to lectur-ers or standing to attention when addressed,let them get on with it.We happen to have in our universities along tradition of tolerance of differing view-points - indeed people of British stock oftendisplay an almost touching affection for eccen-trics. The point is that we want no part ofthe Nationalists' grim teutonic insistence ongrey conformity and iron discipline.So I say to Mr. Vorster and his Govern-ment : Hands off our universities - we aremore than capable of running them ourselves.SASH - The Black Sash magazinePublished quarterly: Annual Subscription 81,60 plus postageIndividual copies 40 centsPlease put my name on your mailing list:-NameAddress ...... I enclose:- R ...... Please bill me later:- 0Post this coupon to:The Black Sash, 37, Harvard Buildings, Joubert St., Johannesburg.IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIItI1111tI1t111111111111111111f11f11111.11111111111111111.1I1111111111t11111111111.1111IIIIIIIIIIIt1111IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIt11111t1111tI1111tI1~1111111111111111111111111VIIIIIIIIIIIIIcThe Black Sash, May, 1973 21 Die S-t Serf, Mei 1979

Page 17 of 37 Change must comeJEAN SINCLAIRThis is the text of an address to the Black Sash in Grahamstown in, !'MarchThe Prime Minister, Mr. B. J. Vorster, said at Windhoek some years ago: "Iwant to sayto the world: you can push people around, you can fight them and you caninsultthem. They will take all this to a certain point, but you must not take aman's homeaway from him. You must not even think you will go unpunished if youestrange a man'sfatherland from him."This is a prophetic statement and if Mr.Vorster sincerely believes it, it is strange thathe and his Government continue to estrangeevery Black person in South Africa. Theydeny all the basic rights to millions of Afri-cans, their right to a settled home and a stablefamily life.About two million oscillating migrantsworking in the White areas are treated as un-settled and deprived labour units, temporarilysojourning in the Republic. Their families,too, are deprived, many thousands pushed in-to urban type resettlement villages where thereare few employment opportunities. The mig-rant husbands come home for their annualleave for from three to four weeks a year.If there are two million migrant workers,.their families mut constitute at least anotherfour million people who are living separatedfrom their husbands and fathers in abjectpoverty.It is estimated that there are eight millionAfricans in the White areas and seven millionin the Homelands. In 1971 the economicallyactive African population was 5 856 000, ap-pjroximately 68 per cent of the total CCOnO-mically active population. (Dept. of Statistics,August 1971).Of the economically active African popula-tion in 1971, the Minister of Bantu Admini-stration and Development stated that therewere 3 470 783 in registered employment. Ifone subtracts the 382 000 in agriculture and'the 648 000 in mining there are approximate-ly 2 800 000 Africans working in industry,commerce, the Government service and do-mestic service, mainly in the urban areas.Excluding the migrant workers there areapproximately one and a half million Afri-eans living in the urban areas who, by virtueof their birth and/or long residence qualifyin terms of Section 10 of the Urban AreasAct to remain in these areas.Although Section 10 does give a measureof security, all Africans, whether qualified toremain or not, fear endorsement out stampsin their books. Government attitude is thatthey are also regarded as temporary sojourn-ers in the so-called White areas.All are unsettled because they have no se-curity of tenure and because it is so easy tofail, inadvertently, to comply with some re-gulation or other. For example if they sendtheir children to school out of the area anddo not inform the superintendent that theyhave done so, the children may be refused en-try on their return from school. Or it maybe that a man or woman accept-, work in an-other prescribed area, not knowing that hewill forfeit his rights to live in the area wherehe belongs.The law and the regulations are so massiveand complex it is not possible for any Africanto know all the regulations, directives and de-crees which control his life.Housing is one of the most serious causesof insecurity. In 1968, the Minister of BantuAdministration and Development issued a di-rective that no more Africans might purchaseor build a house on 30 year leasehold plots.Thase Africans who already owned housescould continue to do so, but if they ever want-ed to sell they could only sell to the local au-thority and they= were not permitted to be-queath their house to their heirs.Today no woman may rent a house. A manmay do so only if he is qualified to be in thearea in terms of Section 10 (1) (a) or (b)of the Urban Areas Act and is lawfully livingin the area, is married or is the male head ofThe Black Sash, May, 1973 22 Die Swart Serp, Mei 1973

Page 18 of 37 the family. (If the father is dead or has leftthe family a son over the age of 21 may beallowed to take over as tenant).The wife and children must be able toprove that they entered the area lawfully andare lawfully living in the area. Only when aman can satisfy these conditions, can his namebe put on the waiting list for a house. InSoweto alone, the names of 14 000 familiesare on the waiting list for a house and thebacklog increases by 2 500 houses a year.If for any reason a woman loses her hus-band through death, divorce or desertion andhas no son over the age of 21 she runs therisk of being evicted from her home. Evenif she has a son over 21 the family may beevicted if he is not married. Houses are leas-ed on a monthly basis. The lease is termin-ated at the end of every month and is renew-ed on payment and acceptance of the rent forthe following month.If a man marries a woman from a ruralarea she may not come to live with her hus-band in town, even if he qualifies in terms ofSection 10 of the Urban Areas Act, unless,she can prove that she entered the ara law-fully and ordinarily resides with her husband.As there is a total embargo on the entry ofwomen into the metropolitan area this is notpossible.Dr. Koarnhof's much vaunted concessionmade at the beginning of 1972 has had verylittle effect because of the lack of family ac-commodation.Thus many men who have been in the ur-ban areas Iny many years are forced to livein "bachelor" hostels along with the two mil-lion migrant workers who are in the Whiteareas on yearly contracts.There has been a wholesale uprooting ofAfrican families from border towns ; fromWhite farms ; from Black spots and womenand children have been endorsed out of theurban areas. Some have been sent to theirtribal homes if they have them; thousands ofother' have been resettled in urban type vil-lages in the Bantustans.There are no complete figures for the num-ber of people or families who have been mov-ed out of White towns to the Bantustans, butwe do know that between April and ~eptem-her 1971, 69 481 people were moved and re-settled. ( Han'ard 3, 17 :2 : '71 and Hans. 4,24 :2 :'71) ; that 5 192 families have beenmoved from another nine border towns; that10 are to4 00 be moved from another 29towns; that there are still 311 Black spots tobe removed and that in Natal alone, there are300 000 mainly tenant farmers and their fa-milies to be removed.In addition bachelor hostels are to be builtin 56 border towns. This negates the wholepurpose of the decentralisation of industry.The object was said to be that the worker andhis family would live in the homeland andthe man would commute daily to town wherehe worked. Now we find that this is notthe case and as far as we know, in 22 of the56 border towns, hostels have been built orare planned to house approximately 191 500men.One of the most distressing aspects of themigrant labour policy is that in towns all overthe country family housing in the Africantownships is being converted into hostels ac-commodation. This does not only apply toborder towns.From all this it must be realised that thewhole of the economically active African Po.pulation and their families ; the subsistencefarmers and their families; the ex labour ten-ants and their families are rootless, povertystricken, undernourished and malnourishedpeople.The social evils which flow from the policyare manifold. In the urban areas where thehostels are, the men have no privacy andlt'le ei 'o-f r, - no home life, poor feeding,(excluding the mines). It is little wonderthat men turn to alcohol for solace. The ille-gitimacy rate has increased enormously, crimeand assaults have increased, rioting occurs inhostels and many men suffer from mental andphysical illnesses.There are diseases due to heavy drinkingand malnutrition such as beri-beri, heart di-sease and pellagra. (Prof. H. C. Seftel, TheLeech Vol. 42. No. 3, p.16 ). Dr. Seftel pointsout that the migrant hostel dwellers are notalcoholics in the true sense, but are heavy so-cial drinkers."These men are drinking, but for a varietyof reasons - poverty, ignorance; poor cook-ing facilities and most important, absence ofwives - the are not eating or are eatingvery inadequately".Dr. Seftel describes the results of the wayof living of hostel dwellers."At the end of a hard day what then arethese men to do? Basically they have twodiversions - neither particularly elevted orelevating. Firstly. sinful sex which generatesThe Black- Sash, May, 1973 23 Die Swart Serp, Mei 197

Page 19 of 37 myriads of illegitimate children or venerealdisease and secondly, they drink.'"llarge percentage of the migrant's wagewhich is usually small, is spent on drink, withthe result that little money is sent to theirfamilies in the homelands. Dr. Seftel gaveinformation on a study he and his colleagueshad undertaken among the Pedi living in theregion of the Jane Furse -Memorial Hospitalin Sekhukhuneland.They found "very few able-bodied men be-tween the ages of 20 and 55 or 60, and the po-pulation consisted largely of women and chil-dren. The average number of people perhousehold was six and the monthly cash in-come of about 70 per cent of the householdswas less than 810."In the resettlement villages there is grind-ing poverty, unemployment and misery, yetevery year, when the migrant head of the fa-mily returns at the end of his contract of ser-vice to spend his leave with his family, heinvariably leaves his wife pregnant. She wantsanother baby on the way while her husbandisa w ng n t _,n.ay.framahon" "rki' i h eher re I.o many women with children,single, widows or divorcees who have been"endorsed out" of White towns and who arethe sole breadwinners for their children. Theycannot find employment in the area to whichthey have been sent and they have no meansof earning money to support their families.There can be .doubt that the migrant ~a-hour policy and the disruption of family lifeon a vast scale is a factor which perpetuateslow productivity and depresses wages.White South Africa does not appear to rea-lise the extent of the poverty among Blackpeople. There was evident shock among em-ployers when the Durban strikes erupted lastmonth. Some employers were reported tohave been amazed - they had no idea theirworkers felt like that !There is a lack of communication which isgeneral, but in view of the mass of publicdiscussion and information in the Press overthe last two years about the wage gap and thepoverty wages of unskilled workers, it is sur-prising that employers, in the main, have notreviewed their wage structure and living con-ditions to insure that their employees wereheing paid a wage at least at the subsistencelevel.The Poverty Datum Line and the MinimumEffective Level in the major urban areas in1972 are as followsPDL KIELPburg 870,62 8105,93 family of fiveDurban 877,30 RI15,95P. Eli;,. 863,98 R 95,97Cape Town 875,97 in 1971 8113,95 family of sixIt is assumed from various surveys whichwere conducted in the major urban areas thattaking the PDL in the region of R70 a month,79 per cent of African workers were earningwages below his level and a further 13' percent were earning below the Minimum ~ffec--tice Level. Thus 92 z per cent of Africanworkers are poverty stricken.I am not an economist and I know nothingabout what percentage of costs wages shouldrepresent. I can only speak on the moral is-sue and I do not accept that any employer canmorally pay wages which are inadequate tosustain health and decency, particularly in acountry where the standard of living forWhites is one of the highest in the world.Industrialists demand greater productivitybefore increasing wages, but there is a viciouscircle in South Africa in that the basic re-quirements for productivity such as a decentstandard of living, education and training areabsent.Dr. J. A. Horner quotes the Inter-AfricanLabour Institute under the aegis of the Com-mission for Technical Co-operation in Africasouth of the Sahara which listed points as pre-requisites for securing productivity from Af-rican labour. They areAdequate financial reward must be set.The task to be performed must be ofsuch a nature and carried out under suchconditions that the workers can take pridein their work.The workers must be given instructionin the correct methods of doing their tasksso that they inay be able to feel that theyare doing a good job. The workers must possess the aptitudeand the intelligence necessary for the taskthey have been set.The workers and their dependants mustbe suitably and comfortably accommo-dated.The workers must be able to obtain ade-quate nutritious food.Management must be able and good andthe workers must feel it to be so.The Black Sash, May, 1973 24 Die Swart Serp, Mei 1973

Page 20 of 37 Most of South Africa's Black workers donot have any one of these prerequisites.Many workers may not have an apiitudenecessary for the task they have been set. Thisis not surprising when one realises it is laiddown in the 1968 labour regulations thatevery African domiciled in the homelandsmust register as a work seeker at his triballabour bureau at the age of 15.At that age he is registered in a categoryof work which may or roar not be of b ischoosing, but he is committed, except in spe-cial circumstances, to perform that work forthe rest of his working life.It cannot be said that on the whole theworkers and their dependants are suitably andcomfortably housed. This is because of theGovernment's migratory labour policy. Suit-able housing is often beyond the control ofthe employer and where White employers doexercise some control they have failed to pro-vide adequate living conditions.I a,,ot b either the w.,ket ' 'aid 'hat 'rcan obtain adequate nutritious food except incertain industries which provide all meals orone good meal a day.The poverty in the homelands is so extremethat a vast proportion of infants in their firstyears of life are undernourished. This cancause permanent impairment of the brain. Iam convinced that many Africans who ap-pear to be unintelligent, suffered from starva-tion in the first five years of their lives.Perhaps the most important factor whichinhibits increased productivity is lack of edu-cation and training. Soutb Africa spends only820,70 per head of total population on educa-tion, whereas the UK spends 8120,30 perhead. (Horner, Black Pay and Productivityin S.A. p17 ). In South Africa expenditureon the education of a White child is 8285 perannum and on that of a Black child is R20-R25. Dr. Horner also illustrates the positionby taking Soweto as a typical urban area andpointing out the discrepancy in the facilitiesfor Black and White children."In Soweto there is one secondary schoolper 80 000 people. In White areas there isone secondary school per 9 900 people. InSoweto there are 8 000 pupils in post-pri-mary education in a population of over onemillion."There is one teacher per 75 pupils, whoseschoolday has been reduced to enable tea-chers to run double sessions. There is agreat inadequacy of space and equipment.The national pupil-teacher ratio isAfricans 60:1 Whites 21 :l."The education levels of economically ac-tive Africans are shattering. Approximately2 500 000 have no education - 59,7 per cent.Another 1 148 000 - 28,5 per cent havereached a standard of education lower thanStandard VI, and only 1 945 - 0,04 per centhave any university education.Dr. Homer says that only three in every1000 have completed secondary education.This is a gloomy picture. To many the solu-tion appears to be unattainable in the timewe have left to us. Nevertheless, it behovesall of us to do whatever we can to make asolution possible.I believe that every unskilled worker shouldbe given a wage at least at the subsistence level.Voteless Africans have no say in the lawswhich govern them and at least they shouldhave some say in their choice of work, of theiremployer and bargaining power with regard totheir wages. Therefore it is a matter of ur-gency that Africans should be allowed to joinregistered trade unions. There is no meaning-ful substitute for this.The migratory labour policy should beabolished. Surely those with economic powercan bring pressure on the Government to allowour African population who work in the ur-ban areas to live there in their own homeswith their families. The greatest insruance forstability is the fostering of family life. Therewould be fewer juvenile delinquents if child-ren had the care and discipline of both par,ents. Freehold tenure is another essential forstability .Compulsory education for all childrenshould be introduced. It is little use sendingmillions of children to school when afterthree years of schooling the drop-out rate is46,5 per cent. It is in the interest of the Af-ricans and the economy that all childrenbe educated under the same system and untilthey have reached the statutory school leav-ing age..Crash literacy classes should be institutedfor adults as well as many more facilities fortrade and technical training. It was shamefulThe MacF, Sash, May, 1173 25 Die S-t Serp, Med 197.T

Page 21 of 37 of the Government to close the adult nightschools in the suburbs of Johannesburg. Per-mission should be given for these schools tore-open.If productivity were to be increased by im-proving wages, education and training it would=e *neentive. Dr. Horner quote, Pro-'Ed' Lawler who emphasises the impor-tance of "expectation"' for motivation. If aman expects to receive no or little reward foreffort he will reduce his effort and defeat at-tempts to increase productivity.Employers tell us frequently that were theyto raise the wages of their unskilled employ-ees their businesses would fail. but I believethat a number of firms who have increasedwages have found that productivity has in-creased. Surely increased wages will result inan increase-d circulation of money and an in-demand for consumer goods.The development and expansion of thehome market will enable industrialists to re-duce costs and make the export market morecompetitive. It must also be pointed out thatthe high rate of labour turnover caused bythe migrant labour system costs industry mil-lions of rand a year. Dr. Wilson says it hasbeen estimated that the high Black labourturnover costs the gold mines between R3 andR4 million a year. (Migrant Labour, F. Wil-son, PI 74 ).The position in South Africa has becomeso serious and so urgent that there must be achange of heart among the White populationimmediately. We will not be given anotherchance. The problems are complex and noteasy to solve, but one thing is certain - wemust abandon "our traditional way of life"and face the reality of the 1970s. Apartheid,separate development, separate freedoms orwhatever you like to call it, has failed.We must stop pushing people around. Wemust abolish the enforced migrant labourpolicy, repeal the pass laws; encourage familyI if" - ant home ownership and =rity rof. grt,..re ; ed. e all our childre ; v.atestrictions on employment ; pay living wages;we must share our political power ; in fact wemust unshackle and free five-sixths of thepopulation who are presently oppressed andexploited.The violent and negative reaction to critic-ism of poor wages, poor living conditions, in-justice and discrimination is indicative of thebehaviour of the man with a guilty consci-ence who is not prepared to give up his pri-vilege or prosperity.We are to be pitied, for as sure as nightfollows day we will pay the price for ourarrogance and greed. Gradualism has nolonger any part to play in our political life.Immediate radical change must come aboutin South Africa if we are to prevent nationaldisaster.The Black Sash, May, 1973 26 Die Swam &rp, Mei 1973

Page 22 of 37 ADVICE OFFICESDURBAN'S NEW OFFICEThe Black Sash opened an Advice Office atthe James Bolton Hall in Gale Street,on February 2. It operates at present everyTuesday morning from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.Here we hope to assist African people withproblems regarding pass laws and referencebooks; housing; endorsements out; work-seekers permits ; residential permits; Section10 qualifications under the Urban Areas Act;contract problems and pensions.By March 27 we had dealt with 10 cases- the problems beingOrders to leave the area - 8 cases. Ofthese cases we have had three probable suc-cesses.MR. J.worked for a Durban construction companyfrom which he resigned voluntarily due to un-satisfactory working conditions. When re-newing his work seekers permit, he was or-dered to leave the area of Durban for no ap-parent reason. The Labour Department wasunable to give any valid reason for orderingMr. J. to leave the area forthwith, and saidthat if he brought a letter from the construc-tion company stating that he did resign ofhis own free will, they would cancel the "En-dorsement Out" stamp in his reference bookand give him a work seekers permit.MR. D.,19, has lived with his widowed mother in Um-la7i since 1964. He was on her resident lodg-er,permit, together with her three youngerchildren. He attended a secondary school inUmlazi until December 1972. As his mothercould no longer afford to keep him at school,he applied for a work seekers permit and wasimmediately ordered to leave the area and goto Umzinto, where he was born, but where henow has no relatives or connections of anykind. Mr. D. has never worked before andtherefore was not familiar with the proce-dure for obtaining a work permit. What heshould have done was to go to the UmlaziGovernment Office, get a "form"; get em-ployment and the "form"' signed by his pros-pective employer, stating conditions of worketc. and then go back to the Umlazi Officepay R1 and have the ferni receipted and fin-ally take it to the Labour Department to en-able him to get a work seekers permit.Housing Problem - whereby a familyhas been ordered to vacate its house in ~am-ontville after 41 years' residence, as it appearsthat a false 10 (1) ( b ) stamp was discoveredin the husband's reference book. Thereforehe no longer qualifies for a home of his ownunder Section 10 of the Urban Areas Act. Thefamily may get a lodgers' permit however, ifthey are able to find a home `owner' willingto take them in as lodgers.Issue of a reference book - problemdealing with a reissue of a lost reference bookand work seekers permit.As regards the other `ordered to leave thearea' or "Endorsement Out"' problems. Withreference to the article "20 000 Jobless Afri-cans in the Transkei", which appeared in theNatal Mercury on March 10 - in which Mr.M. C. Botha, Minister of Bantu Administra-tion and Development is quoted as statingthat there are nearly 20 000 Africans regis-tered as "work seekers" or "unemployed" inthe Transkei and 90 000 in other parts of thecountry, it seems rather ironic that people arecontinually being "Endorsed Out" and refus-ed work seekers permits, only to go back tothe homelands allotted to them by a clerk atthe Labour Department, where they often haveno family or any other connections what-soever, other than that they may have binborn in that area and left as infants.There is very little or no employment andtherefore no= of maintenance either forthemselves or their families.If they are lucky enough to- get employedas attested contract workers, they only havea choice of three means of employment, name-ly, domestic workers, flat workers, or build-ers' labourers.We never cease to marvel at the eternal pati-ence and acceptance of our Black people at theinhman laws of the Government. One won-ders how patient and acceptable to the Whitesof South Africa would be to the same `laws' ifroles were reversed?JOHANNESBURGACCURATE unemployment statistics for Af-ricans are extremely difficult to come by. OnFebruary 9, the Minister of Bantu Admini-The Black Sash, May, 1973 27 Die Swam Serp, Mei 1973'

Page 23 of 37 stration said in Parliament that there were25 322 men and 1 569 women inside thehomeds and 42 804 men and 16 899 wo-men outside the homelands who were unem-ployed as at July 31, 1972.Tes,h ~ figures were obtained from LabourBureaux returns and therefore take no ac-of the hundreds of thousands of womenin the homelands who are not compelled toregister as work seekers at a labour bureau.Nor do the figures include those men who,for one reason or another, have not registeredas work seekers at a labour bureau, as the lawrequires them to do._I2any of these men come to the Advice Of-fice. They- are not registered as work seekers,either because they are totally ignorant of theprocedure, or because they have no area inwhich they may register. These Last are thedisplaced people. Of course, there are manymen too who do not figure in any statisticsbecause they should register in a rural orhomeland area but prefer to remain in thecities, working illegally wherever they can.The Minister's figures total 86 594 unem-p,oyed people, but according to a Parliamen-tary reply given the same day by the Ministerof Statistics, the 1970 census reflected 118 880African men as being unemployed. This fi-gure is also likely to be very much lower thanthe actual figure as many Africans who werewithout proper permits at the time avoidedbeing enumerated in the census.Whatever the true figures, workers in theOffice have noticed a marked increase in thenumber of men coming to Johannesburg fromrural areas to seek work. Almost one-fifthof the people for whom no file was openedduring February had come to Johannesburgin desperation because there is no work forthem in the areas from which they come.No files were opened for them because allthat can be done is to explain to them that itis illegal for them to look for work in Johan-nesburg and that, even if they find jobs, theywill not be allowed to register in employment.We can only tell them that they must registerin their home areas as work seekers and waitthere until a job is offered them by a recruit-ing agent.Many of them are totally unaware of theprocedure they should follow. Others havetried to do the right thing but have waited solong to be recruited that they have given upand tried to find employment for themselves,not realising that this would avail them noth-ing because they cannot be registered in ajob they find in this way.Some had refused an offer made to themby an agent because of the low wage, andthen found they ~eere not offered anythingelse.All these cases are most distressing. Manymen are extremely angry and others are justthoroughly depressed and hopeless.MR. O. W. M.was so depressed that he seemed dissociatedfrom reality and was hardly able to enunciateat all.He has a wife and children at Witsieshoekand says there is no work there for him andthat his children are hungry.It must not be forgotten that a Black mancannot be employed unless he is in possessionof a reference book and a permit to be in thearea. Many of those men who have beenconvicted under Section 29 of the Urban AreasAct of being idle and undesirable have beenso convicted because they have been unableto regularise their position or to obtain thenecessary permits.There is nothing standing between an un-employed Black man and starvation. Un-less he has been previously employed in a jobwhere he earned at least 810,50 a week he isnot eligible for Unemployment Insurance. Theaverage wages paid to Black workers do notallow them to save anv_ thing for times whenthey are unemployed. It is no wonder thatour South African crime statistics are so ap-pallingly high.The pool of readily available unemployedmen is one of the things which go towardskeeping average wages at their present rockbottom levels. So often employers claim, asdid Mr. Coulson of White's Portland Cement,that "the point is that these people are com-pletely looked after. They have free food andaccommodation, and their wages are pocketmoney."If wages are pocket money then that poc-ket money must pay for food, clothing, rent,education, transport and medical expenses fora man's family who are not assisted by thefact that he may be getting free food and ac-commodation himself.Grown men do not want to be "lookedafter." They want to be paid a just wage andto be free to sell their labour and to managetheir own lives.The following cases illustrate some of theways in which South Africa's Black workersare deprived of these basic rights and the waysin which they spend their "pocket money."The Black Sash, May, 1973 28 Die Swart Serp, Nei 1973

Page 24 of 37 MR. S.S.cannot get registered in his employment andhas nowhere to register as a work seeker. Hewas born and grew up on a White farm andresettled in a Bantustan. He is married to aJohannesburg woman, who is not working atthe moment because their youngest child isonly one month old. They have seven child-ren, three of whom are at school. He is work-ing illegally as a panel beater and earns Rl8a week.MR. N. G.has a wife and three children aged 2, 5 and13 years who live in KwaZulu. He has beenregistered with one employer as a flat cleanerfor eight years and is paid 842,76 a month.He pays 82,00 a month rent for his accommo-dation in Johannesburg. His transport toand from work costs him 87,30 a month. Itcosts him 810 return to visit his family. Hiswife has no work where she lives but has asmall garden where she can grow a fewmeal ies.He wants to change his job in order to earnmore money but knows that if he does so hewill be registered on annual contracts. He istoo scared even to take leave at the momentbecause the estate agents controlling the flatssign men off when they go home on leave andre-register them on their return. This woulddeprive him of any chance of completing 10years' continuous employment with one em-ployer, which will entitle him to qualify forpermanent residence in Johannesburg.MR. S. A. M.has ai wfe working in Johannesburg and fourchildren in Seshego, near Pictersburg. Heearns R24 a week working illegally as a driver.His wife earns 835 a month. He supports hisaged mother as well as his children. He hasnot been registered in employment since 1968because he was refused registration as a driver.Before he obtained his driver's licence heworked as a domestic servant and as a flatcleaner and because he is a migrant he Ian-not change his category of employment. Hepays R5 a month rent for his mother andchildren and 83,50 a month for himself inhis illegal lodgings. His transport to andfrom work costs him 12 cents a day and hisreturn fare home when he wants to visit hischildren is 87,56. His family have no meansof growing food for themselves.MR. M. A. N.has a wife and four children in the Transkei.His last registered employment in Johannes-burg ended in April 1972. He earns 812 aweek as a building labourer. He pays 84,25a month rent for illegal lodgings in Johan-nesburg and 84,50 a year in tribal dues. Histransport to and from work costs him 75 centsa week and his return fare home is 827. Hehas not been home for more than a year so hasnot registered there as a work seeker as heshould have done. His last registered em-ployer was obliged by law to pay his returnfare to the Transkei when the employmentterminated, but did not do so.MR- N. i. M.has last all chances of becoming a permanentresident in Johannesburg through his ignor-ance of the law. He worked continuously forone employer for nine years and a few weeksand was earning 819,54 a week as a store-keeper. He left them and will now have tospend the rest of his working life as a mig-rant on annual contracts. It will not be easyfor him to obtain employment at his previousrate of pay on this basis. He has two child-ren and an aged father in BaphutaTswana. Hiswife is a domestic worker.MR. P. J. G.has two wives and 11 children all under theage of 16 on a Tribal Trust Farm in Natal.His last registered employment was in 1965.bearns R9,50 a week.is transport costs him 20 cents a day; hepays R3 a year in tribal dues; his fare homeis 87,92 single. He has not been registeredfor the last eight years because he is com-pletely ignorant of how to set about regularis-ing his position.MR. M. L. M.has a wife earning R20 a month in domesticwork and eight children in a homeland settle-ment. He was earning 86,50 a week in hislast registered employment. He registered inhis home area as a work seeker and waited forthree months without being offered any kindo work at all so he came to Johannesburgillegally to try to find some kind of employ-ment.ATHLONEDECEMBER and January have brought theusual range of problems to the Advice Office,and a few unusual features. About 25 inter-views concerned wage disputes or queries.Many but not all of these had already resultedin the dismissal of the man concerned. ThisThe Black Sash, lily, 19:~ 29 Die Swart Serp, Mex 1979

Page 25 of 37 applied to at least six of the contract workerswho came in, telling us that their pay packetshad been leaner than they could understand.When they had complained, they found them-selves terminating their contracts "by mutualconsent" and there was little we could do be-yond checking that they had received all thepay and train fare money due to them.MR. C. Md.a night-watchman, has had this experience, butis being uncommonly tenacious in his convic-tion that the firm still owes him money. Thefirm is equally intractable but has not yetproduced the contract, which he had seriouslymisunderstood. After deductions, his pay hasbeen just under ten cents an hour, workinghours being 12 out of the 24, seven nights aweek and yielding him a pay packet contain-ing R9. He thought he was signing up forthirty cents an hour. His wife and threechildren are at Qumbu, where he left themin November and where he is instructed torejoin them. His pockets wi11 be empty.Fifteen accommodation problems werebrought to the Advice Office, a sadly fruitlessexercise when there are far too few houses,already filling a far too small area. This isbasic, and until the tight clamp on the quan-tity and quality of African housing is relaxed,little can be done to alleviate urban livingproblems. "The Bishopscourt of Guguletu"cannot remain a wry joke for ever, our stableAfrican community must have a better futureto look forward to and work for.Another 15 cases concerned married coupleshoping and trying to set up legal residence to-gether in the area, the wife trying in each easeaiming at joining her residentially qualifiedhusband. In most cases, patient years of look-ing forward to the day when the man will"qualify", turn to dust when they are told thathis bunk in "single quarters" shows that hiswife has a rural home and does not need tolive with him here. Holiday visits are theirallotted portion, yet these people are not tech-nically known as "migrants" - those are the-ntract workers.MRS. D. F.has at last got lodging permission togetherwith her husband in Guguletu. We have beenseing this couple at fairly frequent intervalssince 1969, when Mrs. D. F. was a "bride" butnot a youthful one ( both had been marriedbefore). At that time she had just been re-fused an extension of her permit in the Divi-sional Council area, a few months short ofhaving been registered there for 15 years. Itwas never renewed after her marriage to D.F.,a worthy and much-qualified citizen residingin the municipal township a few hundredyards away. She has stuck to her guns andher man, and at last they are lawfully set uptogether.SETIE JUTA and DANIEL KWILItwo young people, have achieved full recogni-tion of their rights to reside in the Cape Pen-insula and in Paarl respectively, in terms ofSection 10 (1) (a) of the Act, after the inter-vention of our attorney with documentaryevidence of their claims.MR. A. X.Less spectacular but very rewarding is thecase of A.X. who first came to the Advice Of-fice when he was endorsed out in May 1971,after resigning from a job in which he wasnot ent,rely happy. He was then not yet a"qualified" man, and his employer under-standingly offered him his job back when theconsequences of his resignation were explain.ed. It is now over 15 years since he firstworked in the area; he has achieved Section10 (1) ( b ) conditions and he returned to usto ask whether he can now safely change hisjob. He can.MR. P. Mpn.Sad, however, is the tale of Mr. P. Mpn. anex-serviceman who worked in Cape Town from1945, after demobilisation, until 1971, whenhe left for his birth-place in Thaba 'Nchu, feel-ing unwell and in need for rest. He had nomoney to get back to the Peninsula when hefelt better, so he took a job in Welkom toenable him to save his fare. In so doing, liespoilt his chances here. He got himself asingle ticket to Worcester and walked the restof the way, arriving with very swollen legs.He has not succeeded in finding a contractemployer and only a special concession, rarelygranted, could get him one from the FreeState anyway.He cannot grasp our advice, which is toask the Aid Centre for help in the way of aticket to Thaba 'Nchu. "But I have alwaysbeen a good boy", says this worthy man of58 years.The Black Sash, May, 1973 30 Die Swart Serp, Mei 1973

Page 26 of 37 News from the RegionsCAPE WESTERN:ZT E REGION has added its voice to the many who have protested at thebanning of eightas students following the interim reports of the Schlebusch Commission. Weare particu-larly perturbed that those banned included two of our members.Following the subsequent banning of eight Saso students our chairman wroteto the Argusas follows: : "Eight young White people and eight young Black people havebeen summarilybanned without trial, the Blacks without even the pretence of an inquiry.ut then, to anelectorate that is only White the banning of Black people, it would seem,needs no justification,not even so invalid and hollow a justification as that provided by thecommission of inquiryinto znIt is understood that Bantu Administration Boards will come into operationshortly to takeall the Bantu Administrative functions hitherto carried out by the city anddivisional councils intheir respective areas. The Cape Peninsula will then be regarded as onearea, within which move-ment will be freely allowed.However, we have found that officials will not anticipate this newarrangement and if a manis moved, even with his employer, from one side of the Peninsula to anotherhe is likely toget endorsed out if he tries to change his job within ten years of the move.ALBANYI FEEL we have spent a useful year, though, of course, one can never doenough opposition andprotest against the dire wrongs existing in our society. We have had eightcommittee meetingsand five general meetings. At the latter, three study groups presentedexcellent papers on aspectsof the discriminatory laws and how these affect the Black communities.A long and most interesting talk was given by Mr. David de Beer,ex-accountant of the Dio-cese of Damaraland, at the general meeting in April. His address was on thesocial and politicalfactors in South West Africa and the various happenings which led to theexpulsion of theBishop of Damaraland, certain clergymen and himself. He said that . . .*Family Day in July was used by the Black Sash to arrange displays of thevery meagrerations allocated to indigent residents and old-age pensioners in theresettlement camps, along.,vith a leaflet setting out the facts of the massive disruption to thelives of those not bornwhite; the tables of the minimum recommended poverty diet as opposed to theabove rations:and extracts from one of the Reverend David Russell's letters to theMinister of Bantu Adminis-tration and Development, written while he was living on this meagre diet.This year we have bidden goodbye to three of our most enthusiastic members -Ann Ost-huizen, our ex-chairman; Lynn Blumenfeld, our indefatigable minutessecretary; and SusanHamer, our splendid treasurer. They are all very much missed.At our last committee meeting it was suggested that our branch takes on therole of pres-sure group publicising the facts regarding inadequate local wages,starvation and malnutrition..* Mr. de Beer is banned and may not be quoted.The Black Sash, J7ay, 1973 31 Die Swart Serp, Mei 1973

Page 27 of 37 NATAL MIDLANDSTHE COMMITTEE has continued to approachNapac directly and through the Pressin the hopesof persuading the company to put on productions for Blacks as well as forWhites. There hasbeen no success though the Pietermaritzburg City Council has succeeded ingetting permissionfor Philharmonic concerts to be presented to integrated audier_ces in theCity Hall.Later the blanket permission for Africans to attend was withdrawn and theGovernment grantto the Philharmonic Society ceased. The City Council then voted a grant tothe PhilharmonicSociety to replace the lost one.Mrs. Dyers and Mrs. Biggs interviewed the Director of Publicity because ofcertain informationcontained in a brochure "Your future lies in Pietermaritzburg"'.The Sash objected to the low wages quoted and to the fact that adultAfricans were referredto as "boy" and "girl". The Director agreed that when the pamphlet isreprinted alterations willbe made to meet these objections.A letter has been written to the City Council asking what publicconveniences are availablefor each race in the centre of Pietermaritzburg. There has so far been anacknowledgement butno answer.Shops in the central area of Pieterinaritzburg have also been approachedasking what facilitiesare available for Black customers. The letter read in part : ". . . thereare obviously a great num-ber of Black people who shop in the city centre and we are anxious to knowif your providetoilets and/or rest rooms for them. We assume that you cater adequately foryour own staff,but would be glad to know if provision is made for customers." Two shopshave so farreplied.BORDERON FRIDAY, Ilarbh 9, w e organised protest stands against the banning ofthe students.Posters read "Stop banning without trial'' and "Staak inperking sonderverhoor". One tomatothrown missed its target.We plan to update our booklet "This is our Citying facilities in the city for Whites and Blacks.Each member has been sent the Poverty Datum Line booklet compiled byProfessor ~ot-gieter of the University of Port Elizabeth. =Members have been asked todisseminate the in-formation far and wide and also to give the booklet to one employed oflabour.Do you ever hear blatant discrimination of newscasts on the radio? - "OneWhite man,Mr. Jones, who lives in Pretoria was killed and thee Bantu." Send detailsand the time andstation of broadcast to us and we will do something about it.- East London" which means re-research-TRANSVAALAS USUAL during the parliamentay session your committee is hard at workscrutinising legis-lation and protesting at the continuous erosion of rights and civilliberties in South Africa. Ourattention is focused particularly at the moment on African affairs,particulary migrant labour,'low wages and the tragic status of African women; the universities andattacks on Black andWi an bo outh te students d the general tendency of people in high places th in and ofParlia-ment to suggest that the National Party is the state and that beweenelections citizens shouldnot indulge in politics.This last is a frightening development and cerned and state your democraticrights.you write to your newspaper or the person con should you know or read anyof this I suggestThe Black Sash, May, 1973 32 Die Swart Serp, Mei 1973

Page 28 of 37 The Black Sashjust as the last issue of Sash came off thepress 16 young people were sentenced tofive years in limbo without charge or trial orany judicial procedures whatsoever. 'We havevoiced our condemnation of this and all otherbannings on numerous occasions and in nu-=,Place s. This time we were only a fewany who protested.The fact that the outcry against these bami-ings was of greater volume than has been thecase in the last few years has led in turn to asinister tone in Government statements and,indeed, in some of the statements of the Offi-cial opposition.According to these statements there is onlyone place where political opposition mayrightfully be expressed and that is at the bal-lot box. It is implied that to work politicallyoutside existing political parties or to propa-gandise between election campaigns is wrongand would be illegal were it not for the vasttolerance of our present rulers. There mustbe no extra-parliamentary action.The astonishing thing is that so many menhers of the White public seem to go alongwith this.We have a Parliament which represents 17,5per cent of the Republic's citizens. The other82,5 per cent has no representatives whatso-ever inthe central government.This Government, acting through Parlia-ment, has, over the past 25 years, removed thefranchise from even the limited number ofBlacks who had the vote. It has destroyedthe rule of law with legislation which allowspunishment without trial and indefinite deten-tion without any appeal to the courts. It haseroded the powers of local authorities. It hasrefused trade union powers to 68 per cent ofour economically active population. It hasfractured our country into many so-called "na-tions" and denies the Black nations it hascreated enough land and resources to allowthem to become economically and politicallyindependent.It plans to set up a permanent McCarthy_Iike commission to remove 'natters of funda-mental public importance from open Parlia-mentary debate. It plans to completely alterthe Criminal Procedure Act and writes off theobjections of the professional associations oflawyers as ``political action" and therefore notto be considered.Die SwiarereThrough this year's Electoral Bill, delimi-tations and constituencies will again be mani=pulated to ensure that not even all the 17,5per cent enfranchised people will be fairlyrepresented.In Parliament we have an official opposi-tion which sometimes opposes and then, foroseb ure reasons, supports what it has opposed.Voting and decisions are controlled by a cau-cus system which does not allow independentthought or debate. Even the answers to Par-liamentary questions are not what they usedto be. Too often the only reply is that "itwould not be in the public interest to discloseany facts."In short we have a Parliament which is notanswerable to the majority of the populationand which often does not consider itself ans-werable even to the mir;ority electorate. No~ionder they want us to confine our activitiesto the ballot box.With a political system like this we are ex-pected to reduce our own political action tocasting a vote every five years for a choice ofparties which does not represent the wide spec-trum of ideas and needs of our people. Ifz e tra-parliamentary action is to be denied usn we must ask this question.Is South Africa any more democratic in con-fining the vote to a minority whose electioncandidate may belong to different parties thanthose countries (much criticised) where everyadult citizen has a vote but the possible choiceof candidates is confined to those representa-ting one party? At least in the best of theone-party systems a good deal of grass-rootsand extra-ordinary parliamentary activity isencouraged.We have said it before and we will say itagain. It is not a crime to want change; it isnot a crime to work for change, either changeof government or a radical change in politicalphilosophy.It is the duty and right of the citizens ofany state to express themselves freely; to givevoice to dissent; to protest; to evangelise; togather support for their views; to work forchange.The Black Sash is committed to work forjustice and morality in South Africa. Whenwe have justice and morality here, what achange that will be.The Black Sash, May, 1973 1 Die Swart Serp, Mei 1973

Page 29 of 37 The function of Black PowerDR. T. D. MOODIEDr. Moodie is a lecturer in Sociology at the University o f Natal, Durban.I am a White, English-speaking South Afri-can liberal. I was in the United States ofAmerica at the time when Black Power."broke" and was thus forced to come to termswith the "new" phenomenon. My immediatereaction was to condemn it as a subtle form ofapartheid.On the other hand. Black Power was clearlya potent force for change in the American si-tuation. However ridiculous Afro haircutsand appeals to, Black consciousness may- ap-pear to outsides, nobody doubts that the situ-ation of Blacks in America has changed radi-cally, and that Blacks are getting, ahead therein a manner which would have been impos-sible ten years ago. America is now a moreintegrated society - precisely, it seems, be-cause of Black Power separatism.How does a South African liberal react tothis paradox`? Is there more truth in thepolicy of separate development than we havehitherto been prepared to concede? After all,Verwoerd's policy could be summarised as"fairness to each and justice to all. It wishesto eliminate the danger of a clash between ra-cial groups and make safety, happiness and co-existence possible for everybody. In short,separate development aims at harmony -harmony for Whites and Bantu, Coloureds andIndians."If the liberal's goal is ultimately racial andcultural integration, may it not be that hemust accept the racial and cultural pluralismof separate development policy as an interimstep -- whether it be the policy of Verwoerdor of Stokeley Carmichael9This is the question I shall try to answerin this paper. First, though, we must be clearas to what we mean by the final goal of theliberal. "Integration" is a vague term withnumerous meanings. Let us, then, accept asa minimal definition of integration that it in-cludes equality of opportunity for all, regard-less of colour, creed or culture.Now, it is surely clear that in both SouthAfrica and the United States even the minimalgoal of integration has been unrealisable.On the other hand, I think that one canargue that equality of opportunity has beenthe goal of public policy in both countries.However, the expressions of official policyare, of course, radically different in each.In the United States integration is conceiv-ed to be an individual matter. The object ofintegrationist policy is to remove racial bar-riers to individual equality of opportunity.Once the barriers have been removed, it is upto individual Black Americans to get them-selves ahead in the society.In South Africa this policy of individualintegration has been voiced by White minor-ity parties like the Liberal Party and to sameextent the Progressive Party, and was for de-cades the major goal of African political en-deavour in the ANC.However, the most influential form of inte-grationism in South Africa has emphasisedthe importance of cultural in addition to ra-cial factors, thereby greatly complicating theproblems of achieving equality of pportun-ity. Integration, in this view, can only beachieved by some variety of pluralism, ratherthan by simple assimilation of individuals.This pluralism is usually expressed in terms ofthe formula "that cultural groups must befree to develop along their own lines."In South Africa the term "culture" hascome to be defined in terms of "the spiritualvalues of a particular people" (volksgees).Each people (a group defined ethnically interms of a common language and tradition) isheld to have its own "culture" - specialvalues and norms peculiar to itself.Thus in South Africa we have Afrikaansculture, English culture, Indian culture, andXhosa, Zulu, Sotho, Tswana and Venda cul-tures. There are those who even argue forthe existence in South Africa of Coloured cul-The Black Sash, May, 1973 2 Die S-t Serp, Mex 1973

Page 30 of 37 The notion of Volkskultuur was first clearlyexpressed in French-occupied Germany at thebeginning of the nineteenth century by think-ers such as Fichte and Herder. The fact thatit ultimately led to support for the insane na-tionalist chauvinism of Adolf Hitler oughtnot to obscure the fact that there is a serioussociological sense in which ethnic or volkishdifferences do exist especially where there aredifferent languages.In fact the phenomenon of ethnic orculture-groups is well-known in the UnitedStates, where immigration took place in eth-nic waves. The ideal of "Americanisation''whereby the second generation (American-born) immigrants were to become true Ameri-cans, competing equally in the land of oppor-tunity, has now been accepted as a parody ofthe real situation.Sections of the large Eastern and mid-Western cities can still today be characterisedin ethnic terms. Ethnic divisions carriedover into the churches. For example, untilrecently the Lutheran church in America wasdivided into Swedish Lutheran, German Lu-theran, Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonianchurches.The Roman Catholics have remained onechurch, but there were clear distinctions madein practice on the paroebial level between Ita-lian, Irish, German and the various EasternEuro n t f Capea ypes of tholi,,. Even Judaismwas divided on ethnic lines.Such ethnic differences within the so-calledmelting-pot are sustained and entrenched byethnic organisations such as the Knights ofColumbus for the Italians and the HibernianOrder for the Irish as well as in ward politicsin the cities and informal pressures witbin thepolice forces and public and parochial schools.In fact, there is evidence to suggest that thecontinuation of such ethnic groups in Americawas crucial to the successful outcome of thepolicy of individual integration. For there isconsiderable political and economic powertested in continued ethnic ties (witness tleierise of the Kennedys) and integration tends totake place only when individuals seeking en-try into the established groups are able to op-erate from a secure economic and politicalpower base.Tbus it seems that in addition to a form-ally open society, power base is essential ifany individual is to acquire full acceptance.However formally open the social structuremay be, class and ethnic prejudice will keepa dominant elite firmly in power unless theunderdogs themselves are able to counter withpower.Such countervailing, power was provided bythe informal structure of the ethnic group.Irish or Italian or Jewish consciousness meantthat Irishmen, Italians or Jews that got aheaddid so on the basis of support from ethnicconsumers or voters and in their turn they em-ployed persons from their own groups. Ethnicconsciousness in America thus meant ethnicpower.It was the tragedy of Black Americans thatthey lost their ethnic communality, their Af-rican consciousness, long before the systemwas open to them to. strugle for integration.Blacks came to Amerca, not as voluntary im-migrants who were able to settle together inthe ethnic ghettoes of the city, but rather asslaves on plantations scattered throughout theSouth.Now, having streamed into the cities, theystrive for integration, but according to theofficial ideology, as individuals, not as ethniccommunities. Or not, at least, until the com-ing of Black Power.Hence, the Black Power Consciousnessmovement in the United States and hence alsoits success.Instead of urging Blacks, as individuals, tointegrate into the White community, BlackPower organises Blacks to demand equality ofopportunity from Whites. Thus we concludethat an open society without association forpower on the part of the underdog simply re-mains an example of oligarchal domination.This is not to say that green power for theIrish was always a conscious reason for Irish-men sticking together in America, but ratherto say that the fact that Irishmen stuck to-gether in America was ultimately a crucial fac-tor in Irishmen achieving integration. A con-scious policy of "ethnic power" is unnecessarywhere there is still communality. And thisdespite the rhetoric, is what Black Power istrying to do in America.In New York, the rapid rise of the PuertoRicans (who are Spanish-speaking Blacks andwho have maintained close ethnic solidarity)is one proof that the problems of Blacks inthe USA are not simply a result of Whiteracism.On matters of policy South Africa is theopposite of the USA.The Black Sash, May, 1973 3 Die Swam Serp, Mei 1973

Page 31 of 37 We have seen that in America the officialpolicy of a society open to individual endea-vour did not work without ethnic organisa-tion. In South Africa on the other hand, thephenomena of ethnic groupings has been madethe formal basis of policy. The policy ofseparate development has been formulated interms of ethnic differences. Integration inSouth Africa, it is argued, must take placebetween cultural groups, not between indivi-duals.This theory of separate development wasdeveloped after the Boer War by AfrikanersI ""'Te to what they regarded as a longnhistory of English oppression. An Afrikanerelite began to insist on mother-tongue educa-tion and bilingualism in all spheres of SouthAfrican life. They attempted to establishautonomous eth-is ban'~a and business; c;>r-porations ; they formed a powerful ethnic pc~-litieal p-arty; they had their own Afrikanerholy days and they tried to persuade Afrikan-ers to use their leisure-hours in a properlyAfrikaner way. Boy Scouts, Red Cross, AA,Rotary club and the Chambers of Commerce- all were given Afrikaans counterparts. Eth-nic segregation was preached each year onOctober 10 and December 16. The universalthen3e vas that salvation for Afrikanerdomlay in separation from the English.Such was the formal theory. In practice,however, under cover of this theory of ethnicseparation (which, of --achieved politicalpower in 1948 ), integration between English-man and Afrikaner was proceeding apace.In the Second World War the majority ofthose who signed up were of Afrikaner ori-gins. In the election victory of 1953 (letalone 1948 ), at least 20 per cent of Afrikanersvoted United Party. A recent survey showsthat the majority of Afrikaner students no~1favour dual medium education.Thus, even as in the United States an offi-cial theory of individual integration was en-abled to succeed by ethnic organisation, so inSouth Africa the official theory of ethnicpluralism for English and Afrikaans-speak-ing South Africans was backed by increasingindividual integration.The theory of separate development arguedthat salvation for Afrikanerdom lay in separ-ation. Now they are arguing that a similarsalvation must be imposed on other ethnicgroups in South Africa. And here lies therub.What was voluntary for Afrikaners has be-come compulsory of Africans and Indians.Thus, while emphasising very important eth-nic factors which were overlooked in the Unit-ed States, the South African Government hasclosed what was never at the lest of times avery open society.The universities are a good example. Theintention in founding the tribal colleges was,I believe, to establish ethnic universities foreach of the Black cultural groups, even asPretoria and the University of the OrangeFree State and Stellenbosch and the RandseAfrikaanse Universiteit had been establishedfor the Afrikaner.And a very fine intention it was too. Onthe face of it the money spent on establishingNgoye and Turfloop and Durban/Westvillewas money well spent - but why then pro-ceed to close the Universities of Cape Townand the Witwatersrand and Rhodes and FortHare?If the Indian University were as fine aninstitution as it might claim to be, then mostIndians would choose to attend it, even asmost Afrikaans-speaking students choose togo to the Afrikaans-language universities. Butwhy ought odd individuals not be free to goto other universities - even as my sister at-tended Stellenbosch and my brother readarchitecture at Pretoria. The problem withthe tribal colleges is not that they are ethnicuniversities as such, but they are ethnicallyclosed universities.In terms of the argument of this paper, then,South African Blacks don't need Black Pow-er. The continued maintenance of Black Af-rican ethnic groups is the policy of the SouthAfrc e-menan Go' What is needed is acontinuation of the old liberal struggle for anopen society, informal if not forynal, so thatintegration may ultimately come about.Hence the continued importance of BlackSash. But that is also not the whole story.I have argued that the United States andSouth Africa have formal policies of integra-tion very different from each other. In theUnited States the policy is individual integra-tion, in South Africa it is integration throughcultural pluralism.And yet I concluded in each case that ineach country where the policy succeed itwas accompanied by informal practices verylike the formal policy of its counterpart. In-tegration in the American melting-pot wasThe Black Sash, May, 1973 4 Die Swaxt Serp, Mei 1973

Page 32 of 37 supported by substantial ethnic power baseseven as English-Afrikaner rapproachement hasbeen accompanied by a considerable measureof individual integration.Where integration has failed in both coun-tries - across the colour line - this hasbeen, at least partly because the official policywas not accompanied by its informal coun-terpart. In America, Black Americans havenever had a separate cultural identity fromwhich to draw economic and political power- in South Africa Black South Africans have,been adamantly refused any meaure of indi-vidual integration. Hence the difference intaetics of those who advocate full integrationin both countries -- in America, Black Pow-er; in South Africa, individual acceptance andequality.7hat then., does one say about the Blackconsciousness movement which seems to begrowing so fast in South Africa? Is it not:imply playing into the hands of the Govern-n~ent? =e he 'gic of what I have said sofar, my r to this question would haveto be in the affirmative. However, socialreality has a habit of not conforming to logicnt cd hat is the ase here too.The problem is that I have been assumingthroughout that government practice in SouthAfrica and the United States follows the offi-cial policy. In the United States it does seemto be the case that the Federal Government isintent upon guaranteeing an open society inNorth America.Furthermore, one of the reasons that themovement for Black consciousness has beenallowed to go as far as it has is that it corres-ponds so closely to South African Govern-ment ideology. But I fear that in practicethe actions of the South African Governmentare very far from those professed by the pol-icy. Even in terms of its own policy, theSth .Fon African overnment's professlo. , ofseparate devclop~e,~', must be declared to befraudulent.Afrikaners are fond of stating that thereare but two alternatives in South African racialpolicy - assimilation and total separation.They fail to mention a third possibilitywhich reflects the reality of the South Africansituation as it is at present, that of White do-mination. In 1954, the Tomlinson Commis-sion recommended that E60 million be spenton the industrial development of the "home-lands" during the next ten years.This would enable 50 000 additional Afri-cans to find employment in the homelandseach year or separate development was doom-ed. The Government rejected this recommen-dation in 1956, instead proposing a BantuInvestment Trust which was capitalised initi-at E500 000. Between 1960 and 1966,of Bantu Admini-been invested bythis Trust in establishing 35 industries in theBaZe areas.se industries employed a total of 37Whites and 945 Africans. Dr. Rhoodie in1969 calculated that with the inclusion of theborder industries, approximately 2 000 addi-tional work opportunities have been createdannually since 1968.Politically, the so-called governments of thehomelands are no- calling the Government'sbluff, showing quite clearly that separate eth-nic development in no way implies real powerfor Blacks.It is the universities which seem to havebeen the spark of the present South AfricanBlack Power movement. A policy of genuineseparate development would surely allowBlack professors to sit on university senates- not to mention appointment of Black rec-tors. The fraudulence of the whole Govern-ment policy is most clearly seen by the mostlively section of the Black community, thestudents in the tribal universities.Thus, we conclude, Black Power would beridiculous - simply an aping of overseasmovements - if the Government's policy ofseparate development were genuine. Since thepolicy is clearly fallacious, the Black consci-ousness movement does have a reason for be-ing in South Africa - to show up the deceitthat is the policy of separate development. Itcalls the Government's bluff.Black consciousness in South Africa servesless to integrate South African society than tooffer a glimpse behind the window dressingof Government policy to the shoddy realitiesbehind. As such Black Power does have afunction in our society.Necessity is the plea for every in-fringement of human freedom, it isthe argument of tyrants.- WILLIAM PITT, 1783according to the Ministerstratian, R1 000 000 hadThe Black Sash, May, 1973 5 Die Swart Serp, Mei 1973

Page 33 of 37 The morality of disobedienceMR. A. DU TOITMr. du Toit is a lecturer in PoliticalPhilosophy at the University o f Stellen-bosch. This talk was given to the AllBranches meeting in Cape Town i~zFebruary.It is at once an honour and a privilege for me to have the opportunity toaddress mem-bers of the Black Sash on the topic of civil disobedience in South Africa.Though tothe best of my knowledge the Black Sash has never even entertained the ideaof en-gaging in a civil disobedience campaign it has, perhaps more than any othercom-parable organisation in South Africa, a proud and consistent record ofpublic actionand political protest for moral reasons. And this, as we shall see, is veryclose to thecrucial problems and issues raised by civil disobedience.BEFORE I begin to deal with my subject it-self, I must first make three introductory com-ments concerning its nature, and my aims indealing with it.41 In the first place I want to stress that thistopic of "evil obedience and disobedience"is quite central to and typical of the disciplineof political philosophy. It raises such funda-mental questions as, for example, the natureand limits of citizenship; the relation of mo-rality and politics, etc.0v Ib ioudy these are the kind of questionswhich political philosophers set out t?, I must warn you that they rarely,if everagree on the answers; and certainly I do notpretend to have any of the answers. But quiteapart from coming up with the answers thereis even a difficulty concerning the precise na-ture of the problem - and one that is moreelusive than may be generally recognised.Why should there be any peculiar difficultyconcerning the nature of the problems of poli-tical philosophy? The answer, I believe, isto be found in their location at the intersec-tion of three very different territories, that ofpolitics, morality, and philosophy. Each ofthese have their problems, and often suchproblems are dealt with in a characteristic wayto the exclusion of all other considerations.Thus Politics, as we all know, is the art ofthe possible. It is concerned with the praCti-cal issues of government, and it must deal withthem effectively and realistically. Certainlyour political aims and policies may be influ-enced by moral ideas or the demands for theo-retical consistency and clarity, but above allthey must be practically feasible.In morality, on the other hand, we are notprimarily concerned with the facts of the mat-ter, or even with the bounds of the possible,but with what should be the case. From themoral point of view we can quite rightly insiston the absoluteness of our norms or values, nomatter how "impracticable" or "unrealistic"they might prove to implement, or how diffi-cult it is for any given action or institutionto measure up to these criteria.Nevertheless, both politics and morality areeminently practical concerns, whereas philo-sophy tends to become completely abstractand "intellectual." It often does and indeedit may quite properly concern itself with pure-ly abstract conceptual analysis or a priori rea-soning seemingly without any immediate prac-tical relevance whatever.As long as we can keep these various prob-lems and approaches apart there is little diffi-culty. Whether we are confronted by a pure-ly political problem, or a strictly moral prob-lem, or a characteristic philosophical problem.we know where we are and, at least in prin-ciple. we know how to set about dealing withthat problem.It is much more difficult when our terri-The Black Sash, May, 1973 6 Die S-t Serp, Mei 1973

Page 34 of 37 tories overlap and our approaches conflict.This is the characteristic area of political phi-losophy. Its problems are located in the sha-dowy no man's land, the dangerous contestedterrain where the political, moral and philo-sophical approaches converge and conflict.Perhaps the political philosopher has nobu to the _siness be there. Quite often , politician, the moralist and the pure philosopherwill tell him to clear out and cease obstructingtheir lines of fire. Certainly it is much easierto retire to one or other of these unequivocalpositions and see things from a purely politi-cal, moral or philosophical point of view.Nevertheless, whether we political philoso-phers can stick to our exposed positions ornot, the problems remain there waiting to bedealt with, problems which are at once of apolitical nature, raise moral issues, and de-mand philosophical analysis and argumen-tation.Such a problem, it will be seen, is the topic,"civil obedience and disobedience." That itis a political topic is clear and I would com-pletely miss the issues at stake if I were toattempt in any way to evade or ignore or coverup the immediate political implications ofeven raising the topic of civil obedience anddisobedience on this day and in this place.Its moral nature is equally evident and Iwould utterly fail in even grasping the prob-lem if I were simply to take up some politicalstance in favour of or against civil obedienceor disobedience.That it raises philosophical questions isperhaps not so immediately evident, but thenit is precisely my task to demonstrate thatphilosophical analyses and arguments maycontribute constructively towards our under-standing of, and dealing with the practicalpolitical and moral problem.S I can now be much briefer in my secondpreliminary comment, namely, that it is notmy purpose while dealing with this topic inany way to advocate or initiate a civil disobe-dience action or campaign. Neither for thatmatter, can it be my aim actively to condemnor discourage such actions or campaigns. Iam not here to take up a political stand foror against it at all. My aim must be to under-stand and analyse the problems of civil obe.dience and disobedience in such a way thatboth the political implications and the moralissues are given their proper due.My third and last introductory commentis to stress the exploratory and preliminary na-The Black Sash, May, 1973ture of my talk. I have not come to give youan exposition or my final conclusions on thissubject. I cannot say the last word, indeed,I doubt whether anybody can at present saythe last word on the topic of civil obedienceand disobedience in South Africa - but per-haps I can say a first word which starts a seri-ous, responsible and necessary discussion.For I believe that there are signs that weseem to be entering a new and problematicsituation of utmost moral and political con-cern to all the various citizens of South Africa.Its precise nature and implications is not yetfully discernible, and perhaps I am wrong inthe significance I am inclined to attribute tocertain recent events. In this respect, there-fore, I cannot claim to give more than someexperimental soundings of the situation.Nevertheless I do believe that we can alsodraw on the experience and the reflections ofothers.I must point out that my aims are limitedand that there are a number of major issues,~ith which do not e attempt to deal.b I " deal waenus ill t the problem of thepossible justi f acation of civil disobedience, anissue which so far has been perhaps the ma-jor concern of political philosophers in thisfield.I will not, except in passing, concern myselfwith the major problems concerning violenceor non-violence, which have come to be soclosely connected with the problem of civildisobedience. Finally, I do not wish to enterinto the discussions concerning the merits ordemerits of democratic politics or revolution-ary actions except in so far as they are con-nected with civil obedience and disobedience.These are major issues in their own right andshould be dealt with as such.YOU MAY perhaps have noticed that in re-ment months the South African Press has re-ported a number of individual and apparentlyquite unrelated cases of civil disobedience.The most publicised case was perhaps that ofFather Cosmas Desmond who in 1972 repeat-edly and openly attended church services, par-ticipated in the mass and even preached to theassembled congregation in defiance of the re-quirements of his banning order.According to newspaper reports he was onsome occasions accompanied by other bannedpersons as well. Perhaps the most remark-able aspect of the Desmond case was that theauthorities did not instigate any steps against7 Die Swart Serp, Mei 1973

Page 35 of 37 him, whereas the requirements if similar ban-ning orders had in the past often been strin-gently enforced.I In fact, the Minister, as a result of FatherDesmond's actions, has changed the provisionsof his banning order so that he may now at-tend church services.Another widely publicised case of civil dis-obedience occurred at the Albert Luthuli Me-morial Service in July 1972 where, accordingto newspaper reports, Mr. Sonny Leon., theLeader of the Labour Party, played a tape re-~An act of civil disobedien-ce is an act in violationof a law (or a specificgroup of laws) which isundertaken for moral rea-sons.9cording of Luthuli's banned speech on accept-ing the Nobel Peace Prize. Again, to the bestof my knowledge, no official steps have sofar been taken again Mr. Leon.These are two relatively minor and alsoquite straightforward cases of individual civildisobedience. I do not know how many othersimilar cases there may be though I do knowof some. However, I do think that we shouldsee them and other similar instances in thecontext of a number of other events in the re-cent past which in one way or another aredirectly or indirectly- related to the problemof civil disobedience.These events are of various kinds. Thus inconnection with the inauguration of the Kwa-Zulu Legislative Assemly at the beginning of1972 its members swore an oath of loyalty tothe South African President, but refused toswear its allegiance to the Government and itslaws. I take this event as of crucial signifi-cance to our topic and I regard both the factof the allegiance that was sworn and the alle-giance that was refused, and particularly thesimultaneous combination of both, as equallysignificant. Here to, to the best of my know-ledge, the authorities have not retaliated inany way.A much more familiar case, though one thatstrictly speaking involved no disobedience,was the very widely publicised fast in 19 71in Cape Town of Father Bernard Wrankmorearising out of the death while in police cus-tody under the Terrorism Act of the ImamHaroun. Rather similar though less publi-cised actions have been undertaken by theRev. David Russell in connection with theplight of the inhabitants of resettlementcamps like Sada and Dimbaza. And recentlywe have had the "pilgrimage of confessionfromGrahamstown to Cape Town to d- i-public attention to the plight of migrantlabourers.Another familiar category is that of consci-entious objection to military service. Parti-cularly the official treatment of the Jehovah'sWitnesses in this regard has been a matter ofpublic controversy for a number of years no-As we shall see, conscientious objection is usu-ally differentiated Exam civil disobedience,though in this case the Government's ten-dency to refuse to give a recognised exemptedstatus to conscientious objectors somewhatblurs this distinction.The various student protestts, demonstra-tions, petitions and boycotts in June 19 7 2were of a much more widespread nature, income cases amounting to organised campaigns.There were some significant differences. Whe-ther or not they were always acting withinthe law students at Cape Town and Witscould at least lay claim to a legal and demo-cratic right to protest. So far as I know theissue of civil disobedience did not even ariseath .t at D-Now, of course, since the recent Nusas con-ference in Grahamstown the issue has beenraised, though in a somewhat confused man-ner, with Nusas's public announcement that~An act of civil disobedi-ence is a violation of alaw, but it is not, or notmerely, a crime.'they will defy any Government actions intend-ed to curtail them- The position of the Blackcampuses in May and June 1972 is very dif-ferent and to my mind, no doubt largely dueto ignorance, much less clear. On the whole.however, the confrontations seemed to haveconcerned merely the university authorities.I could continue to list other related inst-ances of various kinds like the bus boycott fol-lowing the Gelvandale riots in Port Elizabeth,the strike by Ovambo migrant workers inJanuary 1972 ; the current spate of illegalstrikes in Natal; the attempt by Mewa Ram-gobin to petition for the inclusion of "politicalprisoners" in the amnesty granted on the occa-The Black Sash, May, 1973 8 Die Swart Serp, Mei 1973

Page 36 of 37 sion of the Republic Festival, or the publicannouncement at the last meeting of the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie by a prominent Afri-kaans professor of literature that he will con-tinue to keep banned books on his shelves re-gardless of the consequences, but it is not mypurpose to compile a complete catalogue ofany kind.I merely want to indicate that in a varietyof different ways the issues of civil obedienceand disobedience are increasingly being press-ed upon us. I must stress that I do not thinkat all that we are on the verge of some newcampaign of massive civil disobedience. In-deed, in terms of the provisions of our secur-ity laws it is hardly possible to see how sucha campaign could even begin to get off theground.On the other hand, I cannot but think thatthere are important reasons why these issuesof civil obedience and disobedience shouldonce again be merging as matters of publicconcern at the recent time, and that weshould very carefully reflect on their preciseorigins, nature and implications.''e have, of course, twice before experienc-ed major campaigns of civil disobedience inSouth Africa. But there were also major dif-ferences between both campaigns, and betweeneither of them and our present position.The first real mass movement in the longhistory of civil disobedience took place herein South Africa almost 60 years ago withGandhi's successful but limited campaig'ag n ~ai st ~Inuts. But o._violent resistance a:understood and practised by Gandhi and his'at yagrahis involved a very specific set ofmoral, philosophical and tactical doctrines.These were still very influential particularly inthe early stages of the passive resistance anddefiance campaigns staged by the Congressmovement during the fifties.On the whole, however, I think it can fairlybe said that the Gandhian philosophy andtechniques were now definitely subervient tothe political aims of resistance, and eventuallythey all but disappeared in the wake of theincreasing trend towards more militant andviolent strategies of resistance during the earlysixties.On both counts the resistance movementwas, however, effectively blocked by the over-whelming force of coercive power and thesecurity measures of the Government.The Congress movement was driven under-ground, if not completely dispersed, and sowe arrive in the seventies: without the posi-tive philosophy of Gandhi, and without eventhe vestiges of a publicly organised resistancemovement.Our problems now would seem to bear muchmore specifically on the basic issues of civilobedience and disobedience as such, ratherthan on the nature or power of non-violenceor on the strategies of resistance. Perhaps'All parades, assemblies,marches, picket lines andother public demonstra-tions that abide by thelaw... however vehementor unusual . . . are not civildisobedience . . . It is a se-rious mistake to class allpublic demonstrations ofprotest as civil disobedi-ence.'the time has come to take a hard and closelook at the phenomenon of civil disobedience,its nature, implications and consequences.THE ISSUE of civil disobedience has featur-ed very large on the American scene in thepast decade and more, not only in the CivilRights Movement led by Dr. Martin LutherKing, but also in the student movement andthe anti-Vietnam War movement.Quite understandably American politicalphilosophers have increasingly concernedthemselves with the problem of civil disobedi-ence. Much of the debate has been concern-ed with the possible justification of civil dis-obedience but that will not be my concern. Iwill attempt to draw on the American discus-sions for an understanding of the meaningand implications of civil disobedience.Obviously we must be clear on what is tocount as civil disobedience, and what not, be-fore we can even begin to conside its justifi-ability or otherwise- For that reason I willalso not be mainly concerned with the variouscontroversies about whether it is essential tocivil disobedience to be non-violent, to be pub-lic, to have exhausted all constitutional alter-natives, etc., in so far as these controveriestend to become mixed up with the issue ofjustifiability.It is perhaps best to begin with the "mini-mal definition" of civil disobedience propos-ed by Robert T. Hall: "An act of civil dis-obedience is an act in violation of a law (or aThe Black Sash, May, 1973 9 Die Swart Serp, Mei 1973

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