THE NEGRO in the United States knows little about the Bantu in
South Africa, but the Bantu knows still less about his black brother in the New
World. There are many reasons for this. The South African natives are,
incredible as it may sound, much more oppressed than the American Negroes.
There is no daily press in the native language, and even if there were, only a
tiny minority could afford to buy it, and not many more could read it, for
education is deliberately denied to a great majority of the Bantu. The
backwardness of life in the Reserves (the so-called native territories) is
artificially maintained, the conditions in the mine compounds are prison
conditions, and the black workers on the white men’s farms are slaves in all
but name. And in any case all the information about the American Negro that the
Bantu gets in “his” weeklies (all of course belonging to an imperialist
publishing concern) is about the successes of Joe Louis or Paul Robeson, with
an occasional article in this strain:
“Within forty-five years of his emancipation he had risen to
the highest level that America could afford its inhabitants. Negro development
is now at par with that of other sections of the American community.”
The problems confronting the Negro in the States and the Bantu in
South Africa are the same. Compare the urbanised Bantu to the lowest strata of
the Negro in the North, and the rural Bantu to the Negro in the South, and you
have the essence of these problems.
Let us look first of all at the statistical aspect of the Bantu problem. The
latest census of 1936 gives the population of the Union of South Africa as
9,588,665, made up of 6,597,241 Bantu, 2,003,512 Europeans, 767,984 mixed
Colored, and 219,928 Asiatics. Of the Europeans 1,307,000 live in urban areas
and 696,000 in rural areas. Of the Bantu 1,150,000 live in urban areas (town
locations) and 5,448,000 in rural areas. (The scope of this article does not
permit us to deal with the other non-Europeans.) If we consider the million
urban Bantu as permanent or casual workers, domestic servants and some
petty-bourgeois, we are left with nearly 5½ million peasants. But most of these
peasants are without land. According to statistics 3 million of them are
crammed into the Reserves, and the remainder are altogether landless, living as
farm laborers, labor tenants and squatters on the European-owned farms. The
actual position becomes clear when we place beside these figures the
corresponding distribution of land. Out of the total area of 143 million morgen
[1] the Europeans have seized
126 million, and the Bantu are left with 17 million, which is partly individual
property and partly in communal tribal ownership. While the density of the
rural population in the Union is 14.07 per square mile, in the Transkei
(Reserves) it is 71.46 per square mile. Today the Reserves are denuded
territories in which only the women, children and old people live, because at
any one time 60 per cent of all able-bodied men are absent, either in the mines
or on the farms of the white men. The Reserves export only one commodity –
labor power.
Comparison: Bantu and Negro in South
The Negro reader will find nothing new in an article on the
struggles of the Bantu. He need only turn to his South to find all the familiar
features – slavery, peonage, segregation, color barriers, and terror against
the blacks. In both countries the life of a black man is worth next to nothing.
The periodical lynchings may attract more attention and arouse more “liberal”
indignation than the periodical shootings in South Africa, but there is no
essential difference between them. They arise from the same cause – the black
man’s helpless position; they are both intended to teach the “Nigger” or the
“Kaffir” where his place is; and in both cases the results are the same – the
black man loses his life, and the white assailant escapes with a fine of a few
dollars or a few pounds. Class justice is class justice, whether it is in
Alabama or in Vereeniging. Aren’t they both democratic states ? Haven’t we the
same western capitalist civilization?
Slavery is supposed to have been abolished in South Africa as far back as
1834. But it still exists, though it is not becoming to say so, as the Speaker
in Parliament remarked. You may call it “
adscripti glebae.” It doesn’t
sound so bad. But in spite of the industrial revolution that has taken place
since the Great Trek, in spite of the discovery of gold and diamonds, in spite
of the Boer War, in which feudalism was defeated by capitalism, the Voortrekker
who refused to accept the Abolition of Slavery Act of 1834 is still the major
force confronting the Bantu in South Africa. The gigantic centenary
celebrations of the Voortrekkers, lasting a whole year (1938), show how the
decaying, cowardly capitalism of the 20th century is ready, here as elsewhere,
for any foul compromise with feudalism at the expense of the exploited and
oppressed.
Policy of Segregation
The history of South Africa since 1834 is the history of struggles
and rotten compromises between capitalism and feudalism, in which the Bantu
were invariably the pawns, for the struggles centered chiefly around the
question of cheap native labor. It may be briefly characterized as the history
of Segregation. The question of Segregation, more than any other question, has
dominated the political arena and exercised the ingenuity of white South
Africa. The term has various meanings, depending on the economic interests of
the several social strata of the population. Some would like to have it both
ways, to have their cake and eat it; they would like to have a “pure white
South Africa” and at the same time to live on the labor of the black man.
It is from the university professors and students, from the poor whites and
from the predicants (clergymen of the Dutch Reformed Church) that the cry comes
for complete segregation – ”South Africa must be made safe forever as a white
man’s country.” It is those who do not live
directly on the profits
and super-profits derived from native labor who are demanding that the Bantu be
completely segregated, driven out of the country somewhere, north to the
Kalahari Desert, where he could “lead his own life and work out his own
destiny”! The South African Labour Party, the party of the white labor
aristocracy, joins the Stellenbosch professors in this demand for complete
segregation, or complete separation, as the party program puts it. The idea has
also taken root in certain sections of the Bantu intelligentsia as a logical
reaction to the “total absence of any community of interest between black and
white.”
On the other hand the industrial capitalists, who need a free labor force
and a developed internal market, are opposed to the extension of segregation
beyond the social sphere. A white South Africa is all very well, but it must
not interfere with the supply of cheap native labor and the accumulation of
super-profits.
Midway between these two is the feudal class of the white landowners, who
would like to have it both ways. The white farmer hates the Bantu with the
hatred of the slave-owner for the slave. He hates his presence on the land,
reminding him always of who is the rightful owner. And because he knows that
the hatred is mutual, he fears the Bantu. He therefore concentrates all his
activities on devising ways and means to keep the “Kaffir” in his place, to
perpetuate and ensure the enslavement of the Bantu. The legislation of South
Africa since the Union was founded in 1910, and especially during the last five
years, the reign of the Fusion Government
[2] marks the victory of these
feudal landowners, and the capitulation of capitalism in
this sphere,
or what Hertzog called the “final solution of the native question in South
Africa.”
If the extreme segregation policy of the Stellenbosch professors, the
predicants of the Dutch Reformed Church, the white Labour Party, etc., has not
been adopted, it is not because the majority of the white ruling class think it
too extreme – they have no moral objections to the policy of complete
extermination adopted by the conquistadors 300 years ago – but because it is
Utopian, because life proves it to be impossible. They hate the natives, but
they must have him. Without him they cannot work the fields and orchards, the
mines and factories. This cheap native labor – it costs next to nothing! – is
the foundation of the whole of South African agriculture, the whole of the
mining industry (the personnel includes only 10 percent of whites, who are
employed as supervisors and skilled workers), 60 percent of industry and 40
percent of transport. Can the capitalists and landowners think of complete
segregation when 400,000 native miners receive three-quarters of the amount
paid to 47,000 European miners, when some farmers pay a native laborer
three
shillings per month, and ten shillings per month is considered by them to
be a decent wage, worth boasting about in Parliament?
Break-up of Bantu Tribal System
The first invaders could not be satisfied with defeating the
Bantu, robbing him of his land and pushing him further north into Reserves, but
had to subjugate and enslave him, and compel him to work the land for the
benefit of the conquerors. The following generations had to pursue more and
more this policy of enslavement to secure cheap native labor, for presently a
powerful competitor came into the field. The discovery of diamonds and gold,
and the industrial revolution which followed it, the development of railway
transport, of coal mining and engineering, upset the pastoral-agricultural
economy of South Africa. The resulting rush from the country to the
fast-growing towns, and the ever-growing and insatiable demand for cheap native
labor threatened the very existence of the white land owners, who until then
had been the sole masters and employers of Bantu slave and serf labor. The
farmers came into conflict with the mining and industrial capitalists, with
whom they have ever since been struggling for control of native labor. The
Bantu could no longer be enticed to the farms by the pretense of satisfying his
hunger for land, and so other methods had to be adopted to teach him the
“dignity of labor.” Taxation proved the most successful, and this was strongly
supplemented by the forcing of industrial products on the natives, and by a
mighty recruiting system to eliminate individual competition and prevent wages
from rising. The results were highly successful for imperialism and the
land-owning class. The ruling classes became richer; their standard of living
rose higher and higher. On the other hand it resulted in a breaking up of the
old Bantu life. The tribal system with all the old Bantu traditions and customs
(good and bad) has disintegrated. The Bantu has been uprooted from his old
tribal and family life, from his economy, without receiving in compensation any
of the benefits of the so-called European system and civilization.
The fast breaking up of tribal life, and the increasing migration of the
Bantu from the Reserves and the farms to the towns alarmed the slave-owners. At
all costs must the Bantu be kept in subjection and slavery and ignorance. At
all costs must he be excluded from town life, from European civilization, from
knowledge of the class struggle, from destructive Communism. Back to tribalism,
back to the Reserves and farms, to “develop on his own lines.” This became the
battle cry of the landowners. Segregation acquired a new meaning.
Hertzog’s Native Policy
Fusion represented a victory for the landowners on the question of
native policy. Hertzog had his native Bills ready as early as 1925, but he had
to wait for ten years before Fusion gave him the opportunity to see them
through. The legislation that was passed during the last four years was not only
the crowning of Hertzog’s career (he was rightly celebrated and hailed by the
ruling classes as the saviour of white South Africa, the guardian of white
civilization), but it also dealt a shattering blow to the old Bantu
organizations and leaders, who were leaning on the imperialists and the
liberals, and relying on their promises of gradual reforms through the
enlightenment of white public opinion. At the same time the attempted
resistance of the “left” groupings and the All-African Convention was frustrated
by the Stalinists, who at that time were desperately clinging to the People’s
Front with the white liberals and the white chauvinistic Labour Party – that
same party which complained that Hertzog’s Bills did not go far enough.
Hertzog’s native policy, which was adopted by Parliament almost without
opposition, is embodied in his Native Acts and rests on four corner stones: (1)
political segregation, (2) territorial segregation, (3) economic and social
segregation, and (4) educational segregation. The first three are secured by
the three Acts, the fourth by an administrative measure.
Native Representation Act Destroys Political Rights of Bantu
The purpose of the Native Representation Act was to deprive the
Bantu of the last vestiges of political rights that he still enjoyed in the
Cape Province from the time when this was a Crown Colony. It is not only the
Negro in the States who has a North and a South. Until recently the Bantu also
had such a division, although perhaps it was not so sharply defined. Only here
the South was the liberal, the North (Transvaal, Orange Free State and Natal)
the reactionary section. When the four provinces were united to form the Union
of South Africa, the more “liberal” policy of the Cape had to give way to the
undisguisedly brutal Native policy of the old Boer Republics. At least the
theoretical principle of Rhodes – equality for all “civilized” men
south of the Equator – came into conflict with the principle of the Boer
Republics: “no equality between white and black in State and Church.” Still, up
until 1936 the Bantu in the Cape enjoyed some political rights, even if these
rights were illusory. He had the right to vote for Parliament and the
Provincial Council, provided he had certain educational and property
qualifications. But such was the oppression under which the Bantu suffered that
out of one and three-quarters million natives only 10,700 had the vote. Yet
these 10,700 votes exercised a certain influence in ten or twelve
constituencies, and moreover they were a source of inspiration and hope for the
Bantu in the other provinces. In addition to the franchise there was the right
to buy land, to occupation of property in the towns, etc. It was these rights,
together with the resistance of the Municipalities, that wrecked the old Land
Act of 1913 and the old Urban Areas Act, and prevented the application of the
Pass Laws to the Cape. No uniform segregation policy could be adopted as long
as these rights and privileges remained. They had to be removed first, and they
were removed by the first of Herzog’s measures, the Native Representation Act,
which disfranchised the Bantu in the Cape, giving him instead indirect
representation by three Europeans in the lower house and one in the upper
house. The natives in the rest of the Union were given three European
representatives in the upper house, one for each province. With the fall of
this last bastion of the liberal Cape it was then easy to put through the Land
Act, the Native Laws Amendent Act, etc. Segregation was complete. No loophole
remained by which the Bantu could escape.
The idea behind this policy of “trusteeship” is simple. The Bantu must
remain forever a minor. This can be achieved if he is outside of the law, if as
a minor he has no political rights, if he has no other means of livelihood
except by administering to the needs of the white man, and if he receives an
education that is suitable only for a servant. Naturally “he must develop along
his own lines,” that is, he must live as little as possible in the towns, where
he might be “transformed into a black proletariat” (!), where he might come
into contact with dangerous subversive elements and acquire habits alien to a
Bantu civilization. The old “beautiful” Bantu customs, the authority of the
chiefs in tribal life, must be given full scope – to develop his own Bantu
culture!
Bantu Driven from Land and Towns to Reserves
To this end it was imperative that the Bantu should be deprived of
all rights and placed as a minor outside the ordinary law of the land. The
Representation Act did this. It was necessary to drive all the Bantu still
living on the land of their fathers as labor-tenants and squatters off this
land. This was done by the Land Act, which provides (a) for a limitation in the
number of labor-tenants (no more than five to a farm), with written contracts
and fees to be paid for each, (b) for such a prohibitive tax on squatters that
in a few years they must disappear, and (c) for an increase in the amount of
free labor given by the tenant to the farmer from 90 days in the year to 180
days. The effect of these provisions will be that only laborers will be left on
the farms, for when the squatters and labor-tenants who are smoked out from the
farms go to the Reserves, they will discover that there is no new land for
them. Hunger and taxation will do the rest, and they will be willing to go back
to any farmer, even if it is only for a little mealie pap (corn).
The third Act completes the process by driving the Bantu out of the towns
and into the Reserves. It gives the Minister for Native Affairs the power to
proclaim any town a closed area. The municipality must inform the Native
Affairs Department of the number of natives it requires. No native may live in
town except on premises where accommodation is provided for him by his master.
No native may live in a town location (the usual place where Bantu live) unless
he ministers to the white man’s needs. As soon as he loses employment he
becomes in the eyes of the law an excess native, who must be “repatriated” back
to the Reserves, even if he was born in the town.
Thus in a nutshell the meaning of this segregation policy is to turn back
the stream of the natives from the land to the towns, and to transform the
Reserves into a huge central recruiting reservoir and distributing center for
native labor, with a quota for the towns, a quota for the mines, and the
balance for the farms. The pass system, which requires the Bantu to carry on
his person a poll-tax receipt, a certificate of labor or contract pass, an
exemption pass, besides various special passes allowing him to travel, to be
out at night, to work as a casual laborer, etc., will make it impossible for
him to choose freely between town labor and farm labor. And the taxation
system, which today results in 70,000 natives a year being sent to jail,
together with the “modification” of the prison system, will complete the
development of the Bantu “on his own lines.”
Bantu Misleaders, Reformists and Stalinists Smash Militancy
The question will surely be put: Was there no opposition on the
part of the Bantu, no support for them on the part of the white workers? At
first a strong opposition movement developed among the Bantu masses in the
urban areas and in the territories. The All-African Convention that came into
being as a result of this movement was in its first session militant, full of
will power, unanimity and decisiveness. But by left phraseology and fiery
promises to “fight,” the old Bantu misleaders managed to get a mandate from the
delegates. And their “fight” consisted in negotiating behind the scenes for
some crumbs, which they would show to the next conference as evidence of what
they had done for the people. In the meantime they worked hard to sidetrack and
break the Convention, which was menacing their own moribund organizations and
challenging their leadership. With the help of the old traitors of the working
class (the Kadalies and Champions) and the new traitors (the Stalinists) they
succeeded in breaking up the All-African Convention.
The Government materially helped to break the opposition by offering a new
bribe to the Bantu misleaders, and by holding out a bait for the land-hungry
masses. They established a Native Representative Council, with advisory
functions only, which was to meet once a year to listen to the Secretary for
Native Affairs. This fine bribe was offered to 16 leaders, who got salaries and
expenses for doing nothing, and for no responsibility whatsoever. But a much
more audacious trick was performed with the bait for the masses – they were offered
7¼ million morgen of new land! And the poor landless Bantu did not realize, and
does not realize even today, that the offer was a fake!
The Land Act of 1913 fixed the area of the native Reserves at 10,410,290
morgen. The Land Act of 1936 fixed the area at 17,660,290 morgen. Isn’t it
obviously an addition of 7¼ million? The swindle consists in this: the 1913 Act
set down a minimum figure for the area of the Reserves, and provided for the
setting aside of additional land for native occupation at a later stage. The
Government then hoped to evict the natives and reduce the area actually
occupied by them to the 10 million figure. But the outcry and revolts that
followed the evictions forced the Government to suspend the working of the Act,
the more so as the first World War intervened and the assistance of the Bantu
was needed. In 1916 the Beaumont Commission found 17,803,455 morgen of land in
native occupation, and recommended to include 8,365,744 morgen in the Reserves,
adding in its report: “it will be found that most of them (the 8 million
morgen) are already occupied by natives and there is not much room for more.”
After the war another commission was appointed – the Provincial Commission –
but it could not reduce the Beaumont Commission’s proposals below 7,521,233
morgen. The Parliamentary Select Committees fared no better. And because these
areas are already in native occupation, the Fusion Government decided to
include them as land “still to be bought”! It began to dawn on the Bantu that
the promise of new land was a fraud when at the Native Conferences the
Government officials could not answer questions as to how much land was still
not
in native occupation. And when the officials produced a map the delegates found
that in point of fact there was no new land. The conference was closed in
confusion. Also in parliamentary speeches some undiplomatic members let slip
the information that all the land is already in native possession.
Yet this fraud achieved its results for the ruling classes. At the most vital
moment it took the wind out of the sails of the opposition. For when the
All-African Convention was called upon to defend the Cape franchise, there was
many a Bantu delegate who replied: “The Government is going to give us land,
and we need the land more than the vote.”
During the three years of agitation, conferences and meetings, when
Hertzog’s infamous native policy was receiving legislative sanction, the white
workers gave no assistance, not even moral support, to those who were being
crushed by their exploiters. The Labour Party gave its full and wholehearted
cooperation to the slaveowners and imperialists. The trade unions remained
silent. Only those who have no voice either in the political or the economic
wing of the movement were sympathetic to the equally voiceless Bantu – the
colored and the Indians.
The white worker in South Africa silently accepts the crumbs of
super-profits derived from his brother worker with a black skin. The war will
change all this.
However dark the present may be for the Negro and the Bantu, however heavy
the chains that weigh down the black man both in the “New World” and in “the
land of his birth,” the time is not far distant when the black man, together
with all the nationally oppressed colonial people and all the exploited
workers, will smash his chains and take his destiny in his own hands,
contributing his rightful share to the building of a new World Order. Today
imperialism is waging another World War. It will be the last one. Tomorrow is
ours. The awakening must come and will come. This time the united effort of the
exploited workers with the enslaved colonial people will smash all the chains
to achieve victory in socialism.
