An Experiment in Confrontation: The Pro-Frelimo Rallies of 1974

Abstract

This article examines the political nature of South Africa's Black Consciousness movement through an account of the pro-Frelimo rallies organised in Durban and at the University of the North by the South African Students' Organisation (SASO) and the Black People's Convention (BPC) in September 1974. It places these rallies in the context of these organisations' adoption of confrontational and public forms of protest after 1972. These represent a high-water mark in Black Consciousness organisation and provided the excuse for the state's prosecution of the leaders of the movement. Despite this, these rallies have been understudied. This article therefore presents a new account of these protests. It shows how the leaders of SASO and the BPC progressively revised their ideas about public confrontation through the process of organising these rallies. After the Minister of Justice announced his intention to ban them, these leaders refused to back down. The rallies each took place as planned, and each provoked a response from local police forces – which, in turn, were clearly expecting the rallies and prepared for the task of dispersing them. This article suggest that the embrace of confrontational forms of protest by SASO and the BPC should be understood as representing a significant moment in the development of public forms of mass protest in South Africa.

Notes

^*I wish to thank the South African National Research Foundation for its support in funding the research on which this article is based. I must also thank William Beinart, Tim Gibbs and Stuart Wilson for their detailed comments on earlier drafts.

¹ Azanian People's Organisation, http://www.azapo.org.za/background1.php, accessed August 2011.

² G. Gerhart, Black Power in South Africa: The Evolution of an Ideology (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1978).

³ T. Lodge, Black Politics in South Africa since 1945 (Johannesburg, Raven, 1983); S.C. Nolutshungu, Changing South Africa: Political Considerations (Cape Town, David Philip, 1983).

⁴ B. Hirson, Year of Fire, Year of Ash. The Soweto Revolt: Roots of a Revolution? (London, Zed Press, 1979).

⁵ S. Badat, Black Student Politics, Higher Education and Apartheid: From Saso to Sanco, 1968–1990 (Pretoria, HSRC, 1999); N. Gibson, Black Consciousness 1977–1987: The Dialectics of Liberation in South Africa (Durban, Centre for Civil Society Research, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Report no. 18, 2004); N. Gibson, Fanonian Practices in South Africa: From Steve Biko to Abahlali Basemjondolo (Pietermaritzburg, University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2011).

⁶ C. Charney, ‘Civil Society Vs the State: Identity, Institutions and the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa’ (PhD thesis, Yale, 2000).

⁷ I.M. Macqueen, ‘Re-Imagining South Africa: Black Consciousness, Radical Christianity and the New Left, 1967–1977’ (Doctoral thesis, University of Sussex, 2011).

⁸ D.R. Magaziner, The Law and the Prophets: Black Consciousness in South Africa, 1968–1977 (Athens, Ohio University Press, 2010 and Johannesburg, Jacana, 2010).

⁹ M. Lobban, White Man's Justice: South African Political Trials in the Black Consciousness Era (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1996).

¹⁰ University of the Witwatersrand, Historical Papers Collection (hereafter WHP), State vs Cooper and 8 Others (A2021), 14.1, ‘Heads of Argument’.

¹¹ Gerhart, Black Power in South Africa, p. 298; T. Karis and G. Gerhart, From Protest to Challenge, Volume 5: Nadir and Resurgence, 1964–1979 (Pretoria, UNISA Press, 1997), pp. 142–43.

¹² See, for example: Magaziner, The Law and the Prophets, p. 1.

¹³ S. Biko, The Testimony of Steve Biko (London, Maurice Temple Smith, 1979); IUEF, Who Are the Real Terrorists? A Document on the SASO/BPC Trial (New York, International University Exchange Fund, 1977); J.G.E. Wolfson (ed.), Turmoil at Turfloop: A Summary of the Snyman and Jackson Commissions of Inquiry into the University of the North (Johannesburg, South African Institute of Race Relations, 1976).

¹⁴ Badat, Black Student Politics, p. 132.

¹⁵ K. Mokoape, T. Mtintso, and W. Nhlapo, ‘Towards the Armed Struggle’, in B. Pityana, M. Ramphele, M. Mpumlwana and L. Wilson (eds), Bounds of Possibility: The Legacy of Steve Biko and Black Consciousness (Cape Town, David Philip, 1991).

¹⁶ I have given a more detailed account of this process in J. Brown, ‘SASO's Reluctant Embrace of Protest’, South African Historical Journal, 62, 4 (2010).

¹⁷ H.E. Isaacs, ‘Full Circle: Reflections on Home and Exile’ (MA thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, 2002).

¹⁸ WHP A2675 (Karis-Gerhart Collection) III/282, ‘Minutes of the 1st National Congress of the BPC, Dec. 1972’.

¹⁹ WHP A2675/III/284, ‘The System on the Attack’.

²⁰ Isaacs, ‘Full Circle: Reflections on Home and Exile’; see also Karis and Gerhart, From Protest to Challenge, Volume 5: Nadir and Resurgence, 1964–1979.

²¹ WHP A2675/III/756, ‘Press-Statement Concerning the Transition in Mozambique’.

²² WHP A2675/III/286, ‘Judgment in S v. Cooper, 15 December 1976’, pp. 118–19.

²³ Sunday Times, 22 September 1974.

²⁴ Lobban, White Man's Justice, p. 40.

²⁵ WHP A2675/III/286, ‘Judgment’, p. 129; Daily News, 25 September 1974.

²⁶ WHP A2675/III/276, ‘Viva FRELIMO! Support FRELIMO!’ (September 1974).

²⁷ WHP A2675/III/286, ‘Judgment’, p. 122.

²⁸ M. Ramphele, Across Boundaries: The Journey of a South African Woman Leader (New York, Feminist Press, 1995), p. 60.

²⁹ WHP A2675/III/286, ‘Judgment’, pp. 123–25.

³⁰ Lobban, White Man's Justice, p. 41.

³¹ Lobban, White Man's Justice, p. 41.

³² Government Gazette, 25 September 1974. See also: WHP A2675/III/756.

³³ Lobban, White Man's Justice, p. 41. WHP A2675/III/286, ‘Judgment’, pp. 126–27.

³⁴ WHP A2675/III/285, ‘Press Statement, 24 September 1974’.

³⁵ WHP A2675/III/286, ‘Judgment’, pp. 126–27.

³⁶ Lobban, White Man's Justice, pp. 41–2.

³⁷ Lobban, White Man's Justice, p. 42.

³⁸ WHP A2675/III/286, ‘Judgment’, p. 128.

³⁹ WHP A2675/III/756, ‘Freedom Struggles of the Past’, 21–22 September 1974.

⁴⁰ WHP A2675/III/756, ‘Freedom Struggles of the Past’, 21–22 September 1974, emphasis in original.

⁴¹ Lobban, White Man's Justice, p. 42.

⁴² WHP A2675/III/285, ‘Statement re: Viva Frelimo Rally – Durban’.

⁴³ Lobban, White Man's Justice, p. 43.

⁴⁴ Photographs of these placards can be found in: WHP A2675/III/285. Transcriptions of their slogans can be found in WHP A2675/III/286, ‘Judgment’, pp. 180–83 and in Wolfson (ed.), Turmoil at Turfloop, pp. 28–9.

⁴⁵ Wolfson (ed.), Turmoil at Turfloop, pp. 21–3. See also: G.M. Nkondo (ed.), Turfloop Testimony: The Dilemma of a Black University in South Africa (Johannesburg, Ravan, 1976), pp. 43–4.

⁴⁶ The quotes are paraphrased in WHP A2675/III/286, ‘Judgment’, p. 188.

⁴⁷ Wolfson (ed.), Turmoil at Turfloop, p. 29.

⁴⁸ Wolfson (ed.), Turmoil at Turfloop, p. 30.

⁴⁹ WHP A2675/III/286, ‘Judgment’, p. 188.

⁵⁰ WHP A2675/III/286, ‘Judgment’, pp. 188–91.

⁵¹ Wolfson (ed.), Turmoil at Turfloop, pp. 29–31. WHP A2675/III/286, ‘Judgment’, pp. 191–97.

⁵² WHP A2675/III/286, ‘Judgment’, pp. 148–51.

⁵³ Daily News, 26 September 1974.

⁵⁴ WHP A2675/III/286, ‘Judgment’, pp. 155–56.

⁵⁵ WHP A2675/III/286, ‘Judgment’, pp. 156–58; Hansard, 27 September 1974, Cols. 598–607.

⁵⁶ Daily News, 26 September 1974.

⁵⁷ WHP A2675/III/286 (S v Cooper, Judgment), pp. 145–46.

⁵⁸ Karis and Gerhart, From Protest to Challenge, Volume 5, p. 143.

⁵⁹ WHP A2675/III/286, ‘Judgment’, p. 256.