Chief obstacles in the way

In the last few chapters we have described the highest level of political development reached by the people, as expressed by the All African Convention, a body which from its inception was regarded by all as the mouthpiece of the African people. It must be borne in mind;however, that the clarity of their formulation reflected rather the clarity of the leadership of the Convention and not by any means that of the people as a whole. Even though the struggles of the people, as described above, had started along the lines of the New Road this did not mean that they had fully grasped all the implications. The delegates who attended the Convention Conference might be clear, but these on the whole represented the most advanced individuals in their respective areas. Each district usually sends its local leaders to represent them at the Conference. It is not enough that these leaders should collectively hammer out a policy and understand its implications. This is only the beginning of the task. It is necessary for the people to understand and grasp all that is involved in the policy they are to adopt.

The All African Convention was acutely conscious of this necessity. That is why, in 1945, it decided to bring out from time to time a newsletter, known as "The Voice of the All-African Convention."Its function was to inform the people of the activities of the Convention, educate them in its policy and interpret the concrete issues of the day in the light of this policy. There is no doubt that such an organ plays an important part in the enlightenment of the people. More than that, it helps to give them a feeling of solidarity, binding each individual to the whole. It must be acknowledged, however, that at present the extent of the contact by this means is limited. As a method of education and contact its potentialities have not been sufficiently explored. Large numbers of people have not been reached, even by the Convention itself, for organisationally it has still a great deal of leeway to make up. The political influence of the Convention has spread because its ideas so closely answer the people's needs and aspirations, but its influence is out of all proportion to its organisational strength.

This disparity between its numerical weakness and its great influence must be bridged if the Convention is to fulfil its potentialities and carry out its tasks. Large numbers of the masses still lie outside the orbit of its organisation and this unorganised mass constitutes a weakness in the struggle of the whole. Though from time to time it may feel the influence of the new ideas, yet as long as it is not organically identified with the federal body, the Convention, it is open to reactionary influences. It is a prey to opportunists, careerists and other agents of the ruling-class. It is true that the once great influence of the liberals is at a discount and the rulers have had to fall back on another crop of agents. The more the people surge forward in their development, the more the leaders are forced to lean heavily on the quislings within, quislings who speak the same language as the people and are the more difficult to detect because they have the same complexion.

These stumbling blocks to the progress of the people are of three kinds: (a) the chiefs or chieftainship;(b) the dummy institutions: the Bungas, Advisory Boards, the Native Representative Council;(c) the African National Congress.

It might seem strange that in the middle of the 20th century there are still educated people who believe-or profess to believe- in chieftainship, an institution which belongs to the prefeudal days. It may seem strange, too, that at this stage in the development of industrial capitalism the herrenvolk should go out of their way to extol tribalism and chieftainship. But when we understand the motive that lies behind the determination of the rulers to bolster up this anachronism then we can clearly see the infamous role of those African intellectuals who join the herrenvolk in their clamour for the restoration of power to the so-called "natural leaders,"the chiefs.

At the present time every effort is being made to break up the people into tribal units. In the rural areas steps are being taken to impose on the people a strict territorial demarcation according to tribe. In some cases they are appointing chiefs where none have existed since the military conquest of the Africans. In the Butterworth District we have an instance of a chief being installed over what is not even a tribe. The people have lived there amicably for generations. In fact tribal affiliations have been broken and organisationally it has still a great deal of leeway to make up. The political influence of the Convention has spread because its ideas so closely answer the people's needs and aspirations, but its influ­ence is out of all proportion to its organisational strength.

This disparity between its numerical weakness and its great influence must be bridged if the Convention is to fulfil its potentialities and carry out its tasks. Large numbers of the masses still lie outside the orbit of its organisation and this unorganised mass constitutes a weakness in the struggle of the whole. Though from time to time it may feel the influence of the new ideas, yet as long as it is not organically identified with the federal body, the Convention, it is open to reactionary influences. It is a prey to opportunists, careerists and other agents of the ruling-class. It is true that the once great influence of the liberals is at a discount and the rulers have had to fall back on another crop of agents. The more the people surge forward in their development, the more the leaders are forced to lean heavily on the quislings within, quislings who speak the same language as the people and are the more difficult to detect because they have the same complexion.

These stumbling blocks to the progress of the people are of three kinds: (a) the chiefs or chieftainship;(b) the dummy institutions: the Bungas, Advisory Boards, the Native Representative Council;(c) the African National Congress.

It might seem strange that in the middle of the 20th century there are still educated people who believe-or profess to believe- in chieftainship, an institution which belongs to the pre-feudal days. It may seem strange, too, that at this stage in the development of industrial capitalism the herrenvolk should go out of their way to extol tribalism and chieftainship. But when we understand the motive that lies behind the determination of the rulers to bolster up this anachronism then we can clearly see the infamous role of those African intellectuals who join the herrenvolk in their clamour for the restoration of power to the so-called "natural leaders, "the chiefs.

At the present time every effort is being made to break up the people into tribal units. In the rural areas steps are being taken to impose on the people a strict territorial demarcation according to tribe. In some cases they are appointing chiefs where none have existed since the military conquest of the Africans. In the Butterworth District we have an instance of a chief being installed over what is not even a tribe. The people have lived there amicably for generations. In fact tribal affiliations have been broken and long since forgotten. But now, flying in the face of the dally existence of the people, the rulers must needs instal a chief over them. This man is known as a Fingo chief-which is rank absurdity. There is no such thing as a Fingo tribe. The so-called "Fingoes "were in the first place made up of various tribes who had migrated to the Cape at different times during- the 18th and 19th centuries and the blanket term "Fingo "as applied to them never had any meaning as a designation of their ethnic affiliations. But this- and any other-absurdity does not worry the rulers so long as they can pursue their policy of "divide and rule "and recreate the old conditions of tribal antagonisms.

In the remote parts of Zululand and the Transkei tribal feuds are still allowed to break out from time to time. In the mine compounds African workers are herded together according to their tribes and thus here in the towns, too, tribal feuds occur. So long as faction fights are the rule, so long is it impossible for the people to unite against a common oppression. Now the trend in modern society to-day is for people to group together according to their respective classes. Modern methods of production and distribution of the means of subsistence tend to weld the workers together irrespective of their race and colour. This in fact is what is actually happening, as the strikes which have taken place, particularly in Johannesburg, as well as the growth of political organisations, have shown. This is why the rulers are trying so strenuously to set the clock back to the dark ages.

This is the reason also for their "revision"of the system of education of Africans by expunging academic education and placing a premium on illiteracy and ignorance. In this way they can create an army of defenceless Black workers, maimed by ignorance, rent asunder by tribal antipathies and fit only to be dumb tools for the performance of menial tasks. Here we cannot but recall the alarm which Rhodes as far back as 1894 expressed on behalf of the herrenvolk at seeing a few Africans getting academic education.

"Why!"he said, "I have travelled through the Transkei and have found some excellent establishments where the natives are taught Latin and Greek. They are turning out kaffir parsons, most excellent individuals, but the thing is overdone. . . . There are kaffir parsons everywhere-these institutions are turning- them out by the dozen. They are turning out a dangerous class. They are excellent so long as the supply is limited, but the country is overstocked with them. These people will not go back and work and that is why I say that the regulations of these industrial schools should be framed by the Government, otherwise these kaffir parsons would develop into agitators against the Government. "- ("Cecil John Rhodes;His Political Life and Speeches, "by Vindex.)

It is worth while noting here that these sentiments were expressed in Rhodes's introduction of the Glen Grey Bill which created the Bunga system. In his argument he linked up the labour problem with the land problem and with education. He clearly saw that to deprive the African of land and to withhold education from him were two edges of the same weapon-they were a means of creating an army of cheap labourers to solve the problem of labour shortage. To-day the herrenvolk have not changed in their attitude. The linking up of tribalism and chieftainship with a "revision"of education is true to the old pattern. Thus the anomaly of tribalism deliberately fostered in the midst of modern industrialism is seen as an attempt to maintain a vast reservoir of cheap labour. In this scheme the chiefs play an Important part. It is not surprising that the Herrenvolk have a fund for maintaining various chiefs all over the country. They are a cog in the vast administrative machinery for the control and the oppression of the Black man.

The question of the control of the subjugated Africans is one which has occupied the minds of the rulers ever since the early stages of the military conquest. Let us hear how the architects of the "Native Policy"spoke in the early decades of last century. It was Dr. Philip, the Liberal-Missionary, Superintendent-General of the London Missionary Society, and the most far-sighted agent of British rule in his time, who more than anyone else clearly formulated what was subsequently to be known as "Native Policy."He posed the problem in this manner: "We have conquered some of the tribes in the Cape Colony, but the problem is how to govern them. We have to annex the territory up to the tropics. We have to establish a system of civil administration. For this we need the chiefs."Now this is the policy, thus formulated early by Dr. Philip, which has been followed up to this day. Subsequent governors and governments were merely to work it out in detail, making the administrative machinery as efficient as possible.

Once, complaining of the delay on the part of the British Government in fully applying his "Native Policy,"Dr. Philip said:

"Had a few of the chiefs been subsidized by having small salaries allowed to them, we might by this time (1843) have had the affairs of Kaffirland in our own hands."(See "Bantu, Boer and Briton,"by W. M, Macmillan.) Then we have the testimony of Lieutenant Governor Andries Stockenstrom, an Afrikaner who had come to an understanding with Dr. Philip on the question of "Native Policy."

Writing to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, he said:

"I believe that every measure tending to lower the importance of the chiefs is calculated to weaken the hold we have on the people."

On another occasion, at a meeting of the ruthless Lieutenant-Governor, of Sarili ka Hintza fame, and the "great humanitarian, "the Rev. Dr. Philip, Superintendent-General of the L.M.S., the conversation turned on the all-important subject of the subjuga­tion of the African people. Stockenstrom stated the matter clearly:

"Let us gain the confidence of the chiefs and they, with the power of the Government and the efforts of the missionaries will influence the masses. ... These two forces combined (i.e. Church and Government) will not civilize unless they make the native chiefs the principal levers in the operations on their people. "(Andries Stockenstrom: Autobiography.)

This, then, was the purpose for which chieftainship had to be preserved. The chiefs had to be paid servants of the Government. They were to be used as agents to "civilize"the people, teach them the "dignity of labour"(as Rhodes expressed it) and in short help reduce them to a position of slavery and keep them there at the bidding of the Herrenvolk.

When the function of chieftainship is thus understood one would expect that no African leader in his proper senses would support it. Yet the incredible has happened. Dr. Xuma, President-General of the African National Congress, in announcing what he called "the minimum programme that Congress called upon the country to take to the people, "said amongst other things:

"What is wanted ... is an intensive campaign and organisation for direct representation in all legislative chambers . . . and recognition of the status of chiefs."(Inkundla Ya Bantu: 4.2.48.)

Here we see a man staking a claim for democratic rights and in the same breadth asking for the very negation of democracy. The kindest interpretation that could be put on such a statement is that it reveals a confusion of political thought. More of this later. Dr. Xuma, however, was not alone in this appeal for the restoration of chieftainship. In May, 1949, the Rev. Calata, Secretary-General of the African National Congress and President of the Cape A.N.C., accompanied by Professor Z. K. Matthews, went on a deputation to Dr. Jansen, Minister of Native Affairs, in connection with the status of a paramount chief. In an interview, the leader of the deputation, Rev. Calata, is reported to have said:

"The fact that he (the paramount chief) has no fixed home lowered his status and had a bad psychological effect on the Gaikas. ... To a large extent detribalisation could be prevented if the Gaikas knew that their chief had permanent headquarters where they could go periodically to renew the tribal bonds ."( Cape Argus : 20.5.49.) (Our emphasis.)

This would have gladdened the hearts of Dr. Philip, Lieutenant-Governor Stockenstrom, Sir Harry Smith and Cecil Rhodes as surely as it must have gratified Drs. Jansen and Malan, General Smuts and Strydom, etc. In fact they themselves couldn't have better expressed the function of a chief. Those trade unionists who have worked hard to organise the African workers in Johannesburg and who have conducted strikes, know well how their efforts have been frustrated by the simple device of bringing in the chiefs at the crucial moment to talk to the members of his tribe, warning them against "detribalised agitators"and their bad influences. They know to their cost, and to the cost of the struggle of a whole people, the meaning and purpose of "renewing the tribal bonds."

The Dummy Institution

The nature of the second stumbling-block to the progress of the people can best be indicated by reference to those who introduced the whole idea of the Bunga system. Let us hear what that arch-imperialist, Cecil Rhodes, had to say when introducing the second reading of the Glen Grey Bill, July, 1894: "The natives have had in the past an interesting employment for their minds in going to war and consulting in their councils as to war. But by our wise government we have taken away all that employment from them. We have given them no share in the government-and I think rightly, too- and no interest in the local development of their country. What one feels is that there are questions like bridges, roads, education, plantation of trees and various local questions, to which the natives might devote themselves with good results. At present we give them nothing to do, because we have taken away their power of making war. . . . We do not teach them the dignity of labour, and they simply loaf about in sloth and laziness. They never go out and work. . . . Now, I say the natives are children. They are just emerging from barbarism. They have human minds, and I would like them to devote themselves wholly to local matters that surround them and appeal to them. I would let them tax themselves, and give them funds to spend on these matters-the building of roads and bridges, the making of plantations, and other such works. . . . By that means I propose that the country shall gradually be relieved of local expenditure in the Transkei. "

In summing up the Bill he said:

"It is a proposition submitted to provide them with district councils;. . . to employ their minds on simple questions in connection with local affairs;. . . and last, but not least, by the gentle stimulant of the labour tax to remove them from a life of sloth and laziness;you will thus teach them the dignity of labour."(Vindex: "Cecil Rhodes. ")

Rhodes, who boasted that he always called a spade a spade, certainly stated his plan with brutal frankness. Over and above the direct and indirect taxation which the Africans had to pay into the general coffers of the state, they had to tax themselves to defray the expenses of running the machinery for their own oppression and also to relieve the white tax-payer and the state. Moreover, in this way the Bungas would have a little money to play about with and-in Rhodes's phrase- "occupy their childish minds. "The Bill under discussion was intended for the Glen Grey District, but even during the debate Rhodes was calling it a "Bill for Africa, "He prophesied that the other Provinces would sooner or later adopt it too and his prophecy was fulfilled to the hit. For the Bunga system was later applied in the Reserves throughout the Union. Indeed it proved to be so successful that the rulers fashioned a similar machinery for the urban African population in the form of the Location Advisory Boards.

The fact that the Bunga system exists up to this day and has not yet been overthrown, demonstrates Rhodes's astuteness. Having tied up the people to these local dummy councils dotted all over the country, they proceeded to create a dummy-in-chief for the whole Union - the Native Representative Council - to allow the higher ranks of the intellectuals to occupy their minds in the higher altitudes of Pretoria. The cynical attitude of the Herrenvolk to the Black man could not be better illustrated than in the way they have worked out this mockery to the utmost detail. They have draped this solemn farce with a colourful pomp and ceremony for the delectation of the "children, "investing it with all the democratic trappings of elections, secret-ballots, etc. Periodically the whole population is thrown into an election fever for the so-called representatives and candidates. And all for what?

Every time the African people participate in these mock elections, every time the intellectuals vie with one another for positions in the councils, they are assisting in the perpetuation of this gross deception. It is not simply a question of the uselessness of these councils. It is more serious than that. They are positively dangerous. They are the people who retard the process of wrenching the scales from their eyes, so that they cannot understand clearly their present position, nor see the only way in which they can liberate themselves. There is another aspect of the situation which it is well to ponder over and that is that the Native Representative Council was created in order to forestall the growth of a national movement and an opposition to it. It was meant as a bribe to the intellectuals, who would otherwise use their talents, their education and their energies in the building up of a powerful movement outside the channels so carefully created by the Government. Such an independent movement is the last thing the rulers want. In fact they will do everything to prevent it. For it is only in this way that the oppressed can liberate themselves.

That Rhodes's plan was a piece of diabolical genius has been conclusively proved by history. For consider its disastrous effects on the African people throughout the first half of the 20th century and on their struggles for liberation. The dross that was dangled before the intellectual was seized by him as if it were the real gold, until at last he clings to it for all the world as if he had lost the capacity to distinguish the counterfeit from the true metal. He clings to it with such tenacity that he even seems prepared to wreck the struggles of his people.

The role of the members of the Native Representative Council was thrown into strong relief as the African people began to realise their true position and were taking the first steps towards throwing off their shackles. In 1943-44 the All African Convention was launching on the New Road, rejecting trusteeship and repudiating the Native Representation Act, with all its segregatory Institutions. In 1945 the M.R.C's countered this by making representations to the Government with a view to "improving"the N.R.C. and thus entrenching the Native Representation Act of 1936. A special Recess Committee of the N.R.C. composed of Professor Z. K. Matthews, Messrs. R. H. Godlo. L.P. Msomi, R. V. Selope Thema and S. Mabude, recommended inter alia that the Council should ask the Governor-General.

"to increase the number of electoral areas from four to six by making the Transvaal and the Free State separate areas and by dividing the Cape, including the Transkei, into two parts. If European representation in the Senate was at any time increased, Native representation should be increased proportionally. Representation of Africans in the House of Assembly should be increased from 3 to 10 members, of whom seven should be elected. In the Provincial Councils Africans should be represented by three persons in the Cape, two in the Transvaal and one each in the Free State and Natal. Further: The members of Native Representative Council should be increased to 60, of whom 48 should be elected-18 for the Cape, 18 for the Transvaal, 8 for Natal and 4 for the Orange Free State. "(Imvo: 1.9.45.)

What does all this amount to? More jobs for African intellectuals. But for what purpose? If Rhodes's original plan entailed bribing a few intellectuals and chiefs, now the intellectuals themselves are pleading with the Government to harness larger numbers of them to assist it in working the machinery of oppression against their own people.

While the people are breaking with inferiority and all that it implies, and gathering their forces to launch a concerted struggle against the Native Representative Act and for full democratic rights, the M.R.Cs on the other hand are putting forward a plea for the negation of democracy. They are racking their brains to find a way of "improving the sham Council in order to make it presentable to the people. Moreover, as the people began to put their rejection into effect and agitated for a boycott of all elections under the Act, the M.R.C's were forced to take their stand against them. Fearful of losing their prestige, they resorted to political trickery;At first they pretended to agree with the people over the boycott, but as election time approached they flouted the decisions of the people and stood for elections, thinking, however. to cover themselves with the ridiculous slogan of "boycott, candidate."

During that whole period beginning with the by-election in the Transkei in May, 1947, to the election of the N.R.C. in 1948, while the people were rallying together under the banner of the Boycott, and while every single organisation in the Transkei had declared for the Boycott, it was at this point that the M.R.C.s clearly revealed their role as disrupters of unity. It was then that the organisations in the Transkei realised that as long as they had the M.R.C.s in their midst, it would not be possible to unite the people for a concerted and principled struggle. Accordingly they expelled every one of the M.R.C's from their organisations, together with all those who stood for elections. (March, 1948.)

With this decisive action of expulsion the Transkei set a practical example to the country as a whole. This did not mean, however, that the M.R.C's were safely isolated from the people and could no longer infest the body politic with the poison of opportunism. On the contrary, they found a home in the bosom of the African National Congress. Lodged in this organisation the M.R.C's are doing everything in their power to retard the political progress of the African people.

It is they who are standing in the way of unity - unity of Congress with the other organisations in the All African Convention. It is they who are refusing to break the trusteeship and inferiority and are causing dissension in the ranks of the Africans. It is they who, by pursuing the policy of collaboration with the oppressor, are tying up the people to the dummy councils. In a word it is they who are disrupting the unity of the people and demoralising the struggle.