The Royal African Society The Rise and Decline of Urban Apartheid in South Africa Author(s): Paul Maylam Source: African Affairs, Vol. 89, No. 354 (Jan., 1990), pp. 57-84 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal African Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/722496 Accessed: 26/03/2010 06:11 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=oup. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Oxford University Press and The Royal African Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to African Affairs. http://www.jstor.org THE RISE AND DECLINE OF URBAN APARTHEID IN SOUTH AFRICA PAULMAYLAM IN DECEMBER1919 a deputation,representing the residentsof Ndabeni, an African township in Cape Town, met the Minister of Native Affairs to discuss the future of the township. The residents of Ndabeni faced the prospect of relocationto a new township. A spokespersonfor the del- egation,expressing dismay at the impendingmove, told the ministerthat it appearedthat Africanswere not wantedin CapeTown: that only their hands were needed at work, and that if some mysterious arrangementcould be devised wherebyonly their hands could be daily broughtto town for purposesof labourand their persons and faces not seen at all, that would perhapssuit their white mastersbetter. 1 This spokesperson,unnamed and forgotten, was touching upon both the essentialobjective and the fundamentalcontradiction of urbansegregation and apartheid. Much of state urban policy in South Africa has been directedtowards attaining the unattainable:the securingof labour-power withoutlabourers. Out of this fundamentalcontradiction has arisenmany furthercontradictions, conflicts and struggles. It is the aim of this articleto show how the policy and practiceof urban segregation,control and apartheidhave evolved (insofaras those policies and practiceshave affectedAfricans), and to examinehow the system has begun to show signs of collapsein more recentyears. The firstpart of the articletries to periodizethe evolution of the apartheidcity and to explain why and how it emergedin specificforms at certaintimes. In this section the focus will be on four main centres: Kimberley, Johannesburg,Cape Town and Durban. The secondpart examinesboth the primarymechan- isms andthe contradictionsof urbanapartheid. It considershow the urban Africanlabour force has been reproducedover time, and who has bornethe costs of reproduction. These issuesgave rise to considerabledebate among state policy makers,and to divisions and conflictswithin and between the centralstate, the local stateand capital. Indeed,much of stateurban policy over the yearshas had to be concentratedon managingthe contradictions, conflictsand strugglesthat have developedaround urban apartheid. This task of managementhas been achieved more successfullyat certaintimes The author lectures in history at the University of Durban, Natal. 1. B. Kinkead-Weekes, 'The development of popular resistance among local Africans 1918-1935' (unpublished paper, Workshop on the History of Cape Town, 1985), pp. 8-9. 57 58 APRICAN APFAIRS than at other times. In the 1960s, for instance,the system held together. However, in the last decade or so the inherent strains and contradictions have shown up more starkly,and today the crisis of apartheidis in many ways most apparentin the urbanarena. Thefirstphase in theemergence of theapartheid city Urbanpolicies and practices in SouthAfrica can be saidto havedeveloped and changed over four main phases: (i) pre-1923; (ii) 1923-1950152;(iii) 1950/52-1979;and (iv) post-1979(this last phaseto be consideredat the end of the article). These phasesshould not be demarcatedtoo rigidly. There are threadsof continuitythat tie all four phasestogether. In some cases a new phasemerely marks a tighteningof thesethreads; in othercases there are more distinctbreaks with previouspatterns. In the first phase, before 1923, there was a relativelylow level of African urbanization. In 1904 the total urbanAfrican population of South Africa was officiallyestimated to be about337,000; by 1921this figurehad risento about587,000. During these firsttwo decadesof the twentiethcentury the percentageof urbanizedAfricans remained fairly constantat 12 to 13 per cent of the total Africanpopulation.2 There was also a high proportionof Africanmales to femalesin urbanareas. This demographicpattern reflected the fundamentalcharacter of the South Africanpolitical economyat the time. Although the Africanrural economyhad been experiencingstresses and strains since the latenineteenth century,it was still ableto providea relativelystable subsistence base. The manufacturingsector had not yet developedon any significantscale, and the urbaneconomy rested largely on mining and commerce. The low level of African urbanizationwas not a result of state enforcement. Indeed, the state apparatusfor controlling the African urban presence was largely undevelopedbefore 1923. A high degreeof regionalautonomy existed, as each province or municipality tended to devise its own regulations for controllingurban Africans. Although no centralized state control was exercised over African urbanizationbefore 1923, there were regionaltrends towardssegregating and controllingurban Africans. It thereforebecomes importantto con- siderthe dominantinterests and concerns that gave rise to thesetrends in our four main centres, and to examine the specific forms of segregationand control that emerged in these centres. In two cases the particularneeds of mining capital seem to have been decisive; in the other two, social considerationswere important. In the diamond-miningtown of Kimberley there emerged one of the earliestand most rigorousforms of urban labourcontrol in South African 2. See H. A. Shannon,'Urbanization, 190S1936,' South African3tournal of Economics,S ( 1937), pp. 16S90. THE RISE AND DECLINE OF URBAN APARTHEID IN SOUTH AFRICA 59 history. Closed compounds, accommodatingAfrican migrant workers, were introducedin Kimberley in the 1880s. GJaol-likeinstitutions, they were actuallymodelled on the De Beers convict station. The closed com- poundswere establishedat a time when diamondprices were fallingand the mineownerswere strugglingto reduceproduction costs. The compounds enabled them to exercise tighter discipline over their unskilled labour force, preventingdesertion and diamondtheft, and to ensurea morecertain supplyof labour. As Turrellhas argued,the compoundshelped to resolve a fundamentaldilemma for the mineowners:'On the one hand,they wanted experiencedlabourers in theirmines. On the otherhand, they did not want an organizedworking class in theirtown. It was this contradictionthat was bridgedby the closed compoundsystem.'3 This is not to say that all Africansin Kimberleylived in compounds. By 1892 about half of the town's African populationwere accommodatedin compounds, the other half living in the town or in locations.4 Thus Kimberleydid not representan earlymodel of rigidurban segregation. Its significancelies in the developmentof the compound as a model mech- anismof labourcontrol. Mabin has noted how the Kimberleypattern was followedelsewhere: 'The strictseparation of Africanand white workers both in the hierarchyof labourand in theirresidences became the modelfor mines and mining towns throughoutsouthern Africa.5 Johannesburgwas one of these towns to follow the Kimberley model. Johannesburg'smining compoundsdid not follow the exact model of the Kimberley 'closed' compound. Before the South African War Johannesburg'scompounds developed along rudimentarylines, but in the conditions of severe labour shortageafter the war they came to be more tightly controlled to curb absenteeismand desertion. The white com- poundmanager played a key role in tryingto enforcestrict discipline among the migrantworkers accommodated in the compound. He wasassisted by a group of African compound 'police'.6 Compounds also housed other Africans,apart from mineworkers,in Johannesburg. By the early 1920s about 5,000 municipalemployees were housed in compounds,and another 6,000 Africanworkers lived in privatecompounds attached to factoriesand warehouses.7 3. Rob Turrell, 'Kimberley's Model Compounds', 3tournalof AfricanHistory, 25 (1984), pp. 734; see also Alan Mabin, 'Labour, capital, class struggle and the origins of residential segregation in Kimberley, 188s1920',3rournal of HistoricalGeography, 12 (1986), pp. 7-13; and William Worger, 'Workers as criminals: the Rule of Law in early Kimberley, 187s1885', in Frederick Cooper (ed.), Strugglefor the City: