GUNS AND GALLOWS
In outward appearance South Africa is a calm, peaceful land, spacious and sunny; its peoples-Black, White and Coloured-are fundamentally warmhearted and friendly. The African in his kraal, even in his squalid "Shanty Town", and in the cities where he is treated as an outcast, is courteous and kind and will share his last crumb with a passing stranger. The hospitality of the Afrikaners is famous and they will readily extend it to strangers, even to Englishmen (Rooineks). I have often found a warm welcome in the homes of even the poorest Afrikaners who lived in the slums of Johannesburg. People who stayed in South Africa during the war remember with deep appreciation the hospitality they received.
Yet South Africa is also a land of violence and of fierce race hatred, with a history marked by a succession of bitter conflicts. Most Afrikaners hate the British, and the British have no love for the Afrikaners. Both hate- the Africans, the Coloured and the Indians, and although the degree of their hatred for non-Europeans may vary, few are completely free from it. Strange as it may seem, the non-Europeans show little animosity towards Europeans. They only hate their oppression and degradation. Africans do not want "to drive the white people into the sea"; they only want freedom.
The discovery of diamonds around Kimberley and of gold on the Rand, in the second half of the last century, led to a sudden imposition of a modern capitalist economy upon South Africa, from outside and by outsiders. Everything was foreign: the mine owners were foreigners (Uitlanders), the capital came from abroad, and even the workers were imported. The miners from Cornwall, Yorkshire and South Wales, the engineers from Glasgow and Birmingham, and the other British artisans who came to South Africa, brought with them not only great skill but a militant trade union spirit. They soon began to build trade unions on the British model. The Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners was formed in 1881 and other trade unions were established later. For nearly forty years the trade union movement of South Africa was British in spirit, tradition and organisation; indeed most unions were branches of "Home" trade unions. Today only the Amalgamated Engineering Union is a section of the British A.E.U. The others, whilst friendly towards the British labour movement, have become independent. Afrikaners were not attracted to industry until 1907, and the Africans, who were nearly all indentured labourers, deprived of the most elementary rights, denied social and cultural amenities, and herded into compounds, knew nothing about trade union organisation until about 1917. The double scourge of violence and hatred which has marked the entire national life of the country for over a century has also left its imprint on the trade union movement. The frequency with which the government has resorted to violence in order to crush the workers, European and non-European, is appalling. In few other countries has the gun been employed so freely in labour disputes as in South Africa?
As early as 1884, when the trade union movement was still in its infancy, four European workers on the diamond mines around Kimberley were shot, in the course of a dispute, by company thugs. In the miners' and engineers' strike on the Rand of 1913 twenty-one people were killed and over eighty wounded by bullets of the Imperial troops which had been called out by Smuts to preserve "law and order". Labuschagne, an Afrikaner miner on strike who stood in front of the crowd, facing the dragoons, stepped forward when he saw the soldiers taking aim and, pulling off his jacket, opened his shirt and shouted, " Shoot, you bastards". A volley rang out and he fell dead among the other victims. In 1914 during a strike of the railway workers. Smuts declared Martial Law and had nine leaders of the Transvaal Federation of Trades deported without trial. In 1919, seventy-one thousand African miners came out on strike for an increase in wages. Smuts called out the police; six Africans were killed at the City Deep Mine and the rest were driven back to work. A year later in Port Elizabeth, during a demonstration of the Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union - the first trade union of Africans-a score of Coloured and African workers were shot in cold blood by a gang of Europeans with rifles they had seized in the police station. In 1922, the miners and some thousands of engineering workers came out on strike on the Rand. The trade unions wished to have the dispute settled by arbitration, but Smuts wanted a "showdown". After a series of police provocations, during which three strikers were shot at a demonstration outside the gaol of Boksburg (a town 16 miles east of Johannesburg), the incensed workers seized rifles and for a week civil war raged on the Rand. Dozens of white workers and some Africans were killed before the strike was crushed. Afterwards Smuts set up Special Criminal Courts; eighteen men were sentenced to death and scores were sent to prison for terms ranging from two to ten years. Three of those sentenced to death, Taffy Long, a Welshman, and two South Africans, Hull and Lewis, were executed at the Pretoria Central Prison. They went to the gallows courageously, singing the "Red Flag". The executions caused such widespread indignation that Smuts commuted the other death sentences to life imprisonment.
The violence continued. In 1931 the police murdered a young Zulu, Johannes Nkosi, during a May Day demonstration in Durban. In 1943 several hundred African municipal workers at Pretoria came out on strike. A European soldier jumped into an armoured car and opened machine-gun fire on a peaceful meeting. Fifteen Africans and one European bystander were killed. In 1946 thirty thousand African miners came out on strike for a small increase in wages. The cost of living was rising and their wages were lower than at the end of the last century. Hundreds of police were mobilised against them: a dozen or more Africans were killed and the rest driven back to work at the point of the bayonet. Since the Nationalist Government has been in power, about 300 Africans have been killed by police action, and recently it has become a common sight to see police with rifles and sten guns "at the ready" at peaceful meetings of Africans. In the last twenty years mob violence has become a common feature of South African life, and organised gangs of Nationalists armed with bicycle chains, knuckleÂdusters and other weapons, regularly break up trade union, Labour Party and United Party meetings.
Such is the tragedy of South Africa. The white workers, British and Afrikaners, have fought for decades and in blood and tears contributed more to the workers' cause than the labour movement of all the English-speaking countries together; they have produced leaders whose ability, devotion and heroism would fill any workers' movement with pride. Yet racial division has pervaded the trade union movement throughout its history and has become accentuated in recent years.
In 1924, Smuts, sensing that his ruthlessness in the 1922 strike had antagonized the people, and striving to regain some of his former popularity, granted an amnesty to all the strikers who were in prison. About fifteen to twenty thousand people assembled inside and outside the Johannesburg Town Hall to welcome the released workers. Six men, of whom four had been sentenced to death and two to long terms of imprisonment, addressed the large gathering. The tone of their speeches could be summed up in the following general terms:
"We have taken up rifles on behalf of the working class of South Africa and against the dictatorship of the Chamber of Mines, and, should the occasion arise, we shall do so again. We are not frightened of Smuts' gallows and prisons. Our comrades Long, Hull and Lewis walked to the gallows singing the "Red Rag" and that should serve as an inspiration to all the workers. The workers of South Africa have for too long submitted to the oppression of the mining barons. We should take a leaf out of the book of the Russian workers, destroy the capitalist system and set up socialism."
Five out of the six speakers, however, ended with the slogan, "Long live a white South Africa".
How often have I listened to white workers who were enthusiastic advocates of socialism and even communism, and yet were still filled with bitterness toward the non-Europeans? Of the new generation of trade unionists, the majorities of white members are violently opposed to the Nationalists, and would give anything to get them out of power. Yet I doubt whether even five per cent. are completely free from race prejudice.
Until the First World War the trade union movement showed little concern for African workers, and took no steps to spread trade unionism amongst them. The organised workers were chiefly artisans who were imbued with the idea of the superiority of the British, and the aristocracy of the craftsman, and could not be bothered with the African, who was black, unskilled and uneducated. Even the Afrikaner worker was not welcome, for he too was unskilled and belonged to a different national group.
During the war the trade union movement made great progress and the first national trade union centre-the South African Industrial Federation-was set up. The records of the Federation are not available, but from press reports it seems that already at its congress in 1917 there was a stormy debate on the attitude of the trade union movement towards Africans. The leaders of the white miners championed the colour bar, which had been legally introduced in the mines in 1912, and threatened to secede from the Federation if black workers were organised. There were many delegates, however, who stood for true trade union principles and urged the organisation of Africans. The Federation adopted a more liberal policy towards Coloured and Indian workers, but rendered no assistance to Africans. Individual labour leaders such as W. H. Andrews, Ivon Jones, S. P. Bunting, began to organise Africans into trade unions in 1917. The Federation collapsed after the 1922 strike, and in 1925 the South African Trades and Labour Council was formed. The Council, which went out of existence in 1953, had no colour bar in its constitution but did not exert itself to organise African workers, although it frequently rendered them moral and organisational assistance.
There are 400,000 members of trade unions in South Africa, of whom about 75% are European. According to the Report of the Industrial Legislation Commission the racial composition of 199 trade unions registered under the Industrial Conciliation Act was as follows (U.G. 62/1951-Par 1038):
Mixed. . .... 63
Open to all races but comprising Europeans only.. 54
Europeans only . . .. .. .. .. .. 38
Open to all races but comprising non-Europeans only.. 22
Open to non-Europeans only .. .. . . .. 14
Composition unknown .. . . . . .. .. 8
The existing three national trade union centres reflect three separate trends towards non-European workers. 1 The Co-ordinating Council, consisting of the Mine Workers, Pretoria Steel Workers and several other small unions with a total affiliated membership of about 30,000, is completely under the domination of the Nationalist Party. This so-called trade union centre supports apartheid and colour bars, and is more concerned with keeping down the non-European worker than with improving the lot of the European. It spurns international brotherhood and workers' solidarity. The second is the recently established South African Congress of Trade Unions, which has a membership of about 40,000, almost exclusively non-European. This national centre is based on fundamental trade union principles, fights for trade union unity, and opposes apartheid and all forms of racial discrimination. The third is the South African Trade Union Council which superseded the South African Trades and Labour Council. It includes Coloured and Indian workers but excludes Africans. Numerically it is the strongest, with a membership of 150,000. Although it practices apartheid within its own ranks, it opposes the apartheid policy of the Nationalists and sometimes renders support to African workers.
Law from organising into trade unions does not prohibit African workers, for the Conspiracy Laws have never been applied in South Africa. But under the Native Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act, 1953, they are denied all rights of collective bargaining. In addition African workers have to contend with
(1) See appendi countless difficulties arising from the social colour bar, and the innumerable legal restrictions such as pass laws. Urban Areas Act and so forth. Securing halls and offices is far from easy, and the presence of police and detectives at meetings and the banning of leaders under the Suppression of Communism Act are not conducive to trade union organisation.
Despite all difficulties, trade unionism among Africans is spreading, and when the 250,000 Africans who have had some contact with trade unionism become effectively organised, the division between Black and White in the trade union movement will largely disappear. Principle and morality are at a low level in South Africa, but power commands respect everywhere; and once the African workers have become strong, the European workers will seek their friendship and co-operation.