Class, Community and Conflict: South African Perspectives

608 Pages·1987·402.284 MB·English

by  Belinda Bozzoli

A
- South African Perspectives

Edited by Belinda Bozzoli
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2019 with funding from
Kahle/Austin Foundation
https://archive.org/details/classcommunityco0000hist
Class, Community and Conflict

History Workshop 3
Class,
Community
and
Conflict
South African Perspectives
Edited by Belinda Bozzoli
Johannesburg
é
Ravan Press
Published by Ravan Press (Pty) Ltd
P O Box 31134, Braamfontein,
Johannesburg, 2017
South Africa
© The contributors as listed on the contents page of this book
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission
of the Copyright owner.
First published 1987
ISBN 0 86975 281 2
Cover photograph (Social worker with digger family, Lichtenburg, late 1920s)
courtesy of Mrs S. Lourens
Set in 10 on 11pt English Times
Printed by Galvin and Sales, Cape Town
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Full List of Conference Papers viii
Contributors x
Preface xiii
Part One: Themes
Class, Community and Ideology in the Evolution of South African
Society /
Belinda Bozzoli
The ‘People’s Past’: Towards Transforming the Present 44
Luli Callinicos
Part Two: Communities Dispossessed
The Legend of Fenner-Solomon 65
Jeff Peires
‘A Forgotten Corner of the Transvaal’: Reconstructing the History of a
Relocated Community through Oral Testimony and Song 93
Patrick Harries
Part Three: Class, Ideology and Jewish Community on the Rand
The Making of a South African Jewish Community in Johannesburg,
1886-1914 135
Riva Krut
Radical Community: The Yiddish-speaking Branch of the International
Socialist League, 19i8-1920 /60
E.A. Mantzaris
Part Four: Garment Workers in Local and Regional Perspective
‘Maar 'n klomp “‘factory’’ meide’: Afrikaner Family and Community on
the Witwatersrand during the 1920s /77
Elsabé Brink
‘Joh’burg Hotheads’ and the ‘Gullible Children of Cape Town’: The
Transvaal Garment Workers’ Union’s Assault on Low Wages in the Cape
Vi Contents
Town Clothing Industry, 1930-1931 209
Martin Nicol
Part Five: White Workers and Political Ideology
Community Politics on the Lichtenburg Alluvial Diamond Fields,
1926-1929 235
Tim Clynick
A Case of Schizophrenia: The Rise and Fall of the Independent Labour
Party 261/
Leslie Witz
Part Six: African Resistance: Perspectives on Class and Gender
‘We are now the men’: Women’s Beer Protests in the Natal Countryside,
1929 292
Helen Bradford
Women in Rural Politics: Herschel District in the 1920s and 1930s 324
William Beinart
Part Seven: Cleavage and Unity in Urban African Communities
The Stay-away of the Brakpan Location, 1944 358
Hilary Sapire
Political Organisations in Pretoria’s African Townships, 1940-1963 401
Tom Lodge
Part Eight: Criminality and Survival in the City
Stone’s Boys and the Making of a Cape Flats Mafia 4/8
Don Pinnock
The Ma-Rashea: A Participant’s Perspective 436
Jeff Guy and Motlatsi Thabane
Part Nine: Experiences
‘Let me make history please’: The Story of Johanna Masilela,
Childminder 457
Jacklyn Cock and Erica Emdon
Workers Divided: Five Faces from a Hidden Abode 478
Eddie Webster
Index 495
Photographs Between pages 64 and 65
Between pages 176 and 177
Between pages 291 and 292
Between pages 456 and 457
Acknowledgements
The History Workshop is grateful to innumerable people and organisa-
tions for their help and cooperation in making all three aspects of the last
Workshop — the academic conference, the Popular History Day and the
Open Day — successful.
Financial and official support came from a variety of quarters, and we
thank the Ford Foundation, the University of the Witwatersrand’s
Workshop Fund, and the African Studies Institute in particular for their
generous support. We would also like to thank Professors D.J. du Plessis,
K. Tober and P. Tyson, who consistently backed our efforts, and various
University departments and divisions, such as the Wits Theatre, which
bore the brunt of the oversubscribed Open Day, the Central Printing Unit,
Wits Public Relations, the Central Television Services, and the University
Foundation.
Organisational and administrative support came from Wendy Cullinan
and Karin Shapiro, without whom nothing would have happened. The
African Studies Institute provided us with space and the Sociology Depart-
ment with various forms of tangible and intangible help. Veronica
Houreld, Denise Moys and Ann Levy typed up clean copies of the papers
in this volume; Andrea van Niekerk did picture research and Sheila de Wet
compiled the index. We thank them all most warmly.
The artists and performers who made the Open Day what it was, those
who helped arrange transport for our audiences, the researchers who at-
tended and participated so vigorously in our academic sessions, and the
popularisers who contributed to our sessions on ‘popularising history’ are
too numerous to be thanked by name, but we acknowledge them here. We
appreciate their contributions immensely and hope to consolidate our links
with them in the future.
Peter Kallaway
Phil Bonner
Tom Lodge
Belinda Bozzoli
Andy Manson
Luli Callinicos
Patrick Pearson
Tim Couzens
Charles van Onselen
Peter Delius
Eddie Webster
Ahmed Essop
Deborah James
Full List of Conference Papers
Besides those included in this book the following papers were presented to
the Conference. A full set of papers is available in the University of the
Witwatersrand Africana Library.
Bonner, Philip and Lambert, Rob: ‘Batons and Bare Heads: The Strike at
Amato Textile, February, 1958’
Bradford, Helen: ‘Lynch Law and Labourers: The ICU in Umvoti,
1927-1928’
Chisholm, Linda: ‘Themes in the Construction of Free Compulsory
Education for the White Working Class on the Witwatersrand, 1886-1907’
Couzens, Tim: ‘Keeping the Runway Clear: Ethelreda Lewis’
De Jager, Helen: ‘Music and Change in Black Urban Culture during the
First Half of the 1960s’
Delius, Peter: ‘Abel Erasmus: Power and Profit in the Eastern Transvaal’
Dikobe, Modikwe: ‘Class, Community and Conflict’
Dubow, Saul: ‘Understanding the Native Mind: The Impact of Anthro-
pological Thought on Segregationist Discourse in South Africa,
1919-1933’
Garson, Noel: ‘The Cape Franchise in Action: The Queenstown By-
Election of December 1921’
Gilfoyle, Daniel: * ““A Concurrence of Interests?’’: Businessmen, Pro-
letarians and Housing in Springs, 1948-1960’
Giliomee, Hermann: ‘Class, Community and Conflict: Mobilising the
Cape Dutch and the Boers in the 19th Century’
Gordon, Sue: ‘Robert Ramathoka Seise’
Gray, Stephen: ‘Leipoldt’s Valley Community: The Novelist as Archivist’
Hamilton, Carolyn and Wright, John: ‘The Making of the Lala: Ethnici-
ty, Ideology and Class Formation in a Pre-Colonial Context’
Hofmeyr, Isabel: ‘Building a Nation from Words: Afrikaans Language,
Literature and ‘‘Ethnic Identity’’, 1902-1924’
Hyslop, Jonathon: ‘Trade Unionism in the Rise of African Nationalism:
Bulawayo, 1945-1963’
Jeeves, Alan and Yudelman, David: ‘The Mobilization of a Sub-
Continent’
Kaarsholm, Preben: ‘Lutheranism and Imperialism in the Novels of Olive