A Liberal Dilemma: A Critique of the Oxford History of South Africa

Eugene D. Genovese , The World the Slaveholders Made (London, Allen Lane, 1970), p. 9.

Monica Wilson and Leonard Thompson, (eds.), The Oxford History of South Africa, Vol. I, South Africa to 1870 (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1969), Vol. II, South Africa, 1870-1966 (1971).

A number of works are specified, including E.A. Walker , A History of Southern Africa (3rd ed., London, Longmans, 1957 );

Vol. VIII of the Cambridge History of the British Empire (2nd edn., Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1963);

A. J. H. van der Walt, J. A. Wiid and A. L. Geyer (eds.), Geskiedenis van Suid-Africa (2 vols, Cape Town, Nasionale Boekhandel Beperk, 1951).

To these could be added C.F.J. Muller , 500 Years; A History of South Africa (Pretoria, Academica, 1969).

These 'inevitable' ideological determinants are even more explicitly stated by Professor Thompson in 'Afrikaner Nationalist Historiography and the Policy of Apartheid', Journal of African History (Vol. III, 1962), pp. 125-41.

C.W. de Kiewiet , A History of South Africa: Social and Economic (London, Oxford University Press, 1941 ), p. 19. The first part of the paragraph contains an example of probably unconscious social Darwinist ideology: 'South African society was not formed by geography and climate alone. From the beginning its physical environment was complicated by the presence of other races and socioties. The development of white society was profoundly influenced by its relations with slaves, Hottentots, Bushmen and Bantu. The true history ....' (Our emphasis.)

See, for example, Shula Marks , 'African and Afrikaner History' , Journal of African History (Vol. Xl, No. 3, 1970), p. 433;

Richard Gray , in Race (Vol. XI, July 1969);

Anthony Atmore, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (Vol. 33, 1970), pp. 435-6.

Gray, op. cit. , p. 90; see also idem , in Race (Vol. XIV, No. 1, July 1972), p. 83.

Barrington Moore Jr. , Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Harmondsworth, Penguin , 1966), p. 486.

Martin Legassick , 'The Frontier Tradition in South African Historiography', Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London, Collected Seminar Papers on the Societies of Southern Africa in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. 2, pp. 13, 19.

This point has been made by Shula Marks in the review article 'African and Afrikaner history', Journal of African History, p. 439.

Roger Wagner is preparing a London thesis on Conraad de Buys and the 'Buysvolk'. The history of Buys is one of many examples of 'intermixture'. On 'intermixture' see Anna Boëseken, 'Die Verhouding tussen Blank en Nie-blank in Suid-Afrika van die haud van die Vroegste Dokumente' , Sorrth African Historical Journal (Vol. 2, 1970), pp. 3-18, and also G. Watson, Passing for White (London, Tavistock, 1970).

Frederick Jackson Turner argued that the 'frontier' or 'wilderness' was the primary determinant in American History. See his collected papers The Frontier in American History, first published 1920, which contained an essay 'The Significance of the Frontier in American History' written in 1893. A short introduction to the case for and against is The Turner Thesis, ed. G. R. Taylor (Boston , D. C. Heath, 1956),

and also Richard Hofstadter , 'Turner and the Frontier Myth', American Scholar (Vol. XVIII, October 1949 ), pp. 433-43.

A notable work on this topic is Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1950/1970).

The building of railways and harbours in the 1870s led to a marked increase in the numbers of African wage earners. For some indications of the process involved in this development, see CO 51, 178 (Appendix 1, Vol. 1), 1874 Blue Book on Native Affairs, G.27: King Williams Town Report by J. R. Innes, pp. 12-13; C. Brownlee (Sec. of Native Affairs) to Government Agents and Magistrates, 9/1/74, ca. p. 155. CO 51, 188, (App. 1, V. 1), Blue Book of Native Affairs, 1876, G. 16: Report of F. Gladwin (Acting Resident Magistrate, Port St. Johns), pp. 24-7; Indutwa Report, p. 59; East London Report, pp. 70-2. According to Government Agent C. Griffith, 15,000 passes were issued in 1875 to Sotho going to work in the Cape Colony, the Free State or on the Diamond Fields—see CO 51, 188, p. 7.

The growth of this labour force was intermittent, and for an indication of the fluctuations in the numbers of African wage earners, see the monthly registration of labourers, listed by chiefdom, in the Griqualand West Government Gazette, CO 109, 1, 1876-80.

With reference to the importation of Indian labour in this period, see L.M. Thompson , 'Indian Immigration into Natal, 1860-1872', Archives Yearbook (Vol. II, 1952), pp. 17-74;

and B.A. Le Cordeu , 'The Relations between the Cape and Natal, 1846-79', ibid . (Vol. I, 1965), pp. 177-9.

Anthony Trollope , South Africa (London , Chapman and Hall, 1878), Vol. I, pp. 102, 147.

On the 'iron rod school', found mainly in the eastern Cape, see ibid., Vol. I, p. 277; Vol. II, pp. 334-6.

For analysis of a serf-like status, see A.V. Chayanov : On the Theory of Peasant Economy, edited by D. Thorner, B. Kerblay and R. E. F. Smith (Illinois, University of Illinois Press, 1966), esp. pp. 16-28 of this neglected work.

Trollope, op. cit., II, 238-40.

Barkly, Proclamations I, II, III , August 1872. C. 732, 1873: Barkly-Kimberley, 2/8/72; 4/8/72; 3/10/72. CO. 48, 461: 8920 (85), 9412 (91). CO 48, 462: 10902 (107). See also George McCall Theal, History of South Africa since 1795, Vol. V(London, 1908), p. 277.

Welsh , Vol. II, p. 181, closely following S. T. van der Horst, Native Labour in South Africa, (London, 1942 and Cass, 1971), ch. V.

John L. Dube , President of the South African Native National Congress From the Cape Argus (14 February 1914), in Correspondence re. Natives Land Act , 1913 (Cd. 7508), 1914, pp. 23-4.

On the importance of gold, see A.H. Jeeves , 'The Rand Capitalists and Transvaal Politics, 1892-1899', Ph.D. thesis, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, 1971 ;

D.J.N. Denoon's forthcoming 'The Grand Illusion: The Failure of Milner's Reconstruction Policy in the Transvaal, 1900-1905' (London , Longmans); and

G. Blainey's seminal article, 'Lost Causes of the Jameson Raid', Economic History Review, second series (Vol. 18, 1965), pp. 350-66.

Milner to Fitzpatrick (November 1899), in C. Headlam, ed., The Milner Papers ( 1931-3) (Vol. II), pp. 35-6. Emphasis in original.

Giovanni Arrighi and John S. Saul , 'Nationalism and Revolution in Sub-Saharan Africa', The Socialist Register , eds. Ralph Miliband and John Saville (London, Merlin Press, 1969), p. 139.

Houghton cites only one exponent of the economic dualist theory, namely W.A. Lewis , 'Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour', The Manchester School May 1954).

For a critique of the theory, see G. Arrighi , 'Labour Supplies in Historical Perspective: A Study of Proletarianization of the African Peasantry in Rhodesia' , Journal of Development Studies (Vol. IV, No. 3, April, 1970 ),

and Ernesto Laclau , 'Feudalism and Capitalism in Latin America', New Left Review , 67, May-June 1971.

Sean Gervasi , 'The Nature and Consequences of South Africa's Economic Expansion', University of London Institute of Commonwealth Studies, Collected Seminar Papers on the Societies of Southern Africa in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. 2, pp. 145-9.

Martin Legassick , 'Forced Labour, Industrialization and Racial Differentiation, unpublished paper, section on 'Secondary Industrialization in a Forced Labour Economy'

Heribert Adam , Modernizing Racial Domination: South Africa's Political Dynamics (Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1971), p. 182.

This argument is alluded to in several places in Frederick Johnstone, 'White Prosperity and White Supremacy in South Africa', African Affairs (Vol. 69, April 1970), especially p. 139.

Ibid., pp. 126-30.

Francis Wilson cites the South African Agricultural Union , Memorandum for submission of Enquiry into Agriculture (1967), p. 15.

X Ray (Vol. VI, No.2, 1/71), The Africa Bureau, London.

X Ray (Vol. II, No. 6, 2/72). The source for the Bureau's statistics on wages was the Bantu Wages and Productivity Association

Ibid. Figures from Market Research Africa, 1971.

X Ray (Vol. I, No. 1, 7/70). Figures from the Non-European Affairs Department of Johannesburg.

X Ray (Vol. II, No.6, 2/72). From the South Africa Institute of Medical Research Survey, 1971.

Ibid From Market Research Africa , 1971.

Cosmas Desmond , The Discarded People ( Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1971).

Cosmas Desmond has aptly termed the policy of 'homelands' or 'Bantustans' a 'charade of double think' Desmond, op. cit., p. 25.

Adam, op. cit. , pp. 182-3. There is a growing literature on the 'modernizing (aspects) of apartheid', which reaches often contradictory conclusions, cf. H. Blumer, `Industrialisation and Race Relations' in G. Hunter, ed., Industrialisation and Race Relations (London, Oxford University Press for the Institute of Race Relations, 1965);

F. Johnstone, op. cit. ; Martin Legassick , 'Development and Underdevelopment in South Africa', unpublished paper, Royal Institute of International Affairs, 11 March 1961; A. W. Stadler, 'Race and Industrialisation in South Africa: a critique of the "Blumer thesis"', unpublished paper, Royal Institute of International Affairs, 28 January 1971;

Stanley Trapido , 'South Africa in a Comparative Study of Industrialization', Journal of Development Studies (Vol. VII, No. 3, 1971);

Harold Wolpe , 'Industrialism and Race in South Africa', in Sami Zubaida, ed., Race and Racialism (London, Tavistock, 1970), pp. 151-79.

It is interesting to compare Adam's conclusions, summarized above, with the closing remarks of his chapter, 'The South African Power Elite: a Survey of Ideological Commitment', in South Africa: Sociological Perspectives ( London, Oxford University Press, 1971): 'The flexibility of the South African power elite to adapt its system of dominance to changing conditions, to strengthen it economically, and to streamline it politically by concessions towards deracialization, should not be underestimated. Ambivalent progress though it may seem to the advocates of heightened polarization, it could nevertheless prove to be the most decisive factor for future development in the South of Africa' (p. 101).

Cf. Richard Gray , in a review of the second volume of the Oxford History, Race (Vol. XIV, No. 1, July 1972): 'traditional loyalities' merge, 'with other frustrated interests, into a radical, if desperate, rejection of integration and white liberalism.'

African National Congress policy is better characterized as 'non-racial'. See, for instance, The Freedom Charter of the Congress of the People (Kliptown, A. N. C., 1955): 'South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white.... The rights of the people shall be the same, regardless of race, colour and sex.' A copy of the document appears in Forward to Freedom, strategy, tactics and programme of the African National Congress , South Africa, London, 1970;

and a discussion of the document in Nelson Mandela , No Easy Walk to Freedom (London, Heinemann, 1965 ),

Chapter 6. Also see 'Strategy and Tactics of the ANC(SA) 1967', in Foward to Freedom: 'Our policy must continually stress in the future (as in the past) that there is room in South Africa for all who live in it but on the basis of absolute democracy.' These documents also appear in Alex La Guma (ed.), Apartheid (London, Lawrence and Wishart, 1972).

Forward to Freedom, p. 5.

H.J. and R.E. Simons , Class and Colour in South Africa, 1850-1950 ( Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1969), pp. 386-415, with reference to the late 1920s and early 1930s; on African membership in the C.P., see pp. 396, 406. For post-war relations between the C.P. and A.N.C., see Mandela, op. cit., p. 179.

Mandela, op. cit., p. 130.

For illustrations of the nature of violence from an African perspective, see David Lytton , Goddam White Man ( Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1962),

Alex La Guma , And a Threefold Cord (Berlin, Seven Seas, 1964),

A Walk in the Night (London, Heinemann , 1967),

The Stone Country (Berlin, Seven Seas, 1967).

W.M. Macmillan , Bantu, Boer and Briton ( London, Faber, 1929; 2nd edn., Oxford, Clarendon, 1964), p. 371.

E.A. Walker , History of Southern Africa (3rdEdn., London, 1957 ), pp. 99-100.

C.W. de Kiewiet , op. cit, p. 56.

I.D. MacCrone , Race Attitudes in South Africa: Historical, Experimental and Psychological Studies (Johannesburg, Witwatersrand U.P., 1937/1957), p. 128.

Our emphasis. For French revolutionary ideology and the South African 'frontier', see also J. S. Marais, Maynier and the First Boer Republic ( Cape Town, Maskew Miller, 1944).

Summarized and translated by L.M. Thompson in 'Afrikaner Nationalist Historiography', op. cit., pp. 131-2, from J. Albert Coetzee, Politieke Groeperitig in die wording van die Afrikanernasie (Potchefstroom, 1941).

N.J. Rhoodie and H.J. Venter , Apartheid (Cape Town/Pretoria, Haum, 1959), especially pp. 4, 17, 35-6, 55, 118, 242, 244, 246.

Laclau , 'Feudalism and Capitalism in Latin America', op. cit., p. 30.

For some recent examples of a vast literature on 'racism', see the works of John Rex , especially 'The Concept of Race in Sociological Theory' in Sami Zubaida, ed., Race and Racialism, and Race Relations in Sociological Theory (London, Weidenfeld, 1970).

Our discussion of racism contrasts with that of Rex. In Race Relations, Rex's approach appears to be empiricist: he accepts that the concept of 'racial differences' necessarily refers to given elements in reality—'race relations ... have the following characteristics: they refer to situations in which two or more groups with distinct identities and recognizable characteristics are forced by economic or political circumstances to live together in a society.... Ascriptive allocation of roles and rights ... are justified in terms of some kind of deterministic theory, whether that theory be of a scientific, religious, cultural, historical, ideological or sociological kind' (pp. 159-60).

A concept from the sphere of racist ideology has become the first term of his own definition. Philip Mason's magisterial Patterns of Dominance (London, Oxford University Press for the Institute of Race Relations, 1970),

describes a great range of racist situations and prescribes a grand liberal and idealist solution An entire issue of Race (Vol. XIII, No. 4, April 1972)

was given over to an examination of the theoretical considerations involved in a study of racist situations. Eric Dunning, 'Dynamics of Racial Stratification: Some Preliminary Observations', briefly analyses the South African case (pp. 432-3), but assumes the antipathy between the 'industrial economy' and apartheid, which we argue to be a misconception.

For some pointers towards a theory of ideology, see Louis Althusser , For Marx (London, Allen Lane, 1969), pp. 232-6;

and Lenin and Philosophy (London, New Left Review Editions, 1971),

the essay 'Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses', pp. 123-73. Also Antony Cutler, 'Fascism and Political Theory' in Theoretical Practice (London, Vol. 2, April 1971), pp. 2-15.

In this respect, Adam's observation that 'South Africa now displays racialism without racism' (Sociological Perspectives, p. 79) denotes, if correct, a mere shift within the structure of racist ideology; its equivalent, 'separate but equal', is a classic form of racism

E.H. Carr , for one, has long pointed out this home truth to historians, in What is History ? (Harmondsworth , Penguin, 1961/1964 ), pp. 22-8.

Majeke , op. cit., Introduction