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Abstract
The main theoretical and empirical focus of this paper is the critical examination of alternative forms of resistance that emerged in South Africa after the suppression of mass mobilisation and following the banning of anti-apartheid organisations in the 1960s. It will argue that while the period c. 1966–1979 is regarded as an era in which apartheid was at its height in South Africa, other forms of resistance emerged against it. The emergence and alteration in resistance measures was largely propelled by ‘subjects’ desire to free themselves from the rituals of oppression and from the practice of state repression. This alteration could be seen in the use of a variety of tools including the criminal justice system (legal instruments), ‘one-man’ protests and covert ‘political education’ to unsettle apartheid. By focusing on these three components and through the narrative of an individual and the local study approach, this paper also seeks to recover some of the ‘lost, prophetic voices’ that played a meaningful role during this period and therefore aims to explore some historical events of this era and their resonances for South Africa beyond 1979.
Notes
1. For a detailed discussion on the subject also refer to works of S.M. Mkhize, ‘Contexts, Resistance Crowds and Mass Mobilisation: A Comparative Analysis of Anti–Apartheid Politics in Pietermaritzburg during the 1950s and the 1980s' (MA Thesis, University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1998); T. Simpson, Umkhonto we Sizwe: The ANC’s Armed Struggle (Cape Town: Penguin, 2016); T. Karis and G. Carter, eds, From Protest to Challenge: A Documentary History of South African Politics (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1977).
2. Some of these strategies are discussed in detail in the following works: T.C. Moloi, ‘Black Politics in Kroonstad: Political Mobilisation, Protests, Local Government and Generational Struggles, 1976–1995’ (PhD dissertation, University of Witwatersrand, 2012); T. Simpson, ‘Military Combat Work: The Reconstitution of the ANC's Armed Underground, 1971–1976’, African Studies, 70, April (2011); S. Pillay, ‘The Prerogative of Civilized Peoples: Apartheid, Law and Politics’, Comparative Studies of South Africa and the Middle East, 34, 2 (2014); South African Democracy Education Trust, ed., The Road to Democracy in South Africa (Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2004), vol. 1; R. Abel, Politics By Other Means: Law in the Struggle Against Apartheid, 1980–1994 (New York: Routledge, 1995).
3. Noor Nieftagodien and Phillip Bonner give a detailed account of the benefits of ‘history from below’ in that it focuses on the peculiarities of local struggles that are mostly lost in centralised narratives. Using the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a case study, they explore how the ‘global’ narrative ignored the peculiarities of events that took place at Khathorus between 1990 and 1994. For a detailed account of this discussion, see P. Bonner and N. Nieftagodien, ‘Local Truths in Kathorus’, paper presented at the Wits History Workshop, 11–14 June 1999. The Wits history workshops are credited for profiling alternative voices through ‘history from below’ and the relevance of oral interviews.
4. Ciraj Rassool and Leslie Witz discuss how the notion of apartheid was embedded in the celebration of festivals such as the Jan van Riebeeck tercentenary in 1952; for a detailed discussion see C. Rassool and L. Witz, ‘The 1952 Jan Van Riebeeck Tercentenary Festival: Constructing and Contesting Public National History in South Africa’, The Journal of African History, 34, 3 (1993).
5. For detailed discussion on Advisory Boards and Native Representative Councils refer to P. Bonner, P. Delius and D. Posel, eds, Apartheid's Genesis, 1935–1962 (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1993); T. Karis and G. Carter, eds, From Protest to Challenge, A Documentary History of African Politics in South Africa 1882–1964: 1882–1964: Protest and Hope, 1882–1934, vol. 1 (California: Hoover Institution Press, 1972); T. Karis and G. Carter, eds, From Protest to Challenge, A Documentary History of African Politics in South Africa 1882–1964: Hope and Challenge, 1935–1952, vol. 2 (California: Hoover Institution Press, 1972); R. Simons, Class and Colour in South Africa, 1850–1950 (London: International Defence and Aid Fund, 1983), 490–495, 582, 602.
6. Matiwane was part of a generation of activists who at first thought that change could be brought through participation in advisory boards, but he learnt through experience that such instruments were not designed by the apartheid state to bring about change.
7. Matiwane, A Treatise of Black Victimisation and The Contemporary Problem of Apartheid Strappado (unpublished and undated manuscript), Chs 9 & 10; interview by Bongani Ndhlovu (assisted by Phumzile Mvelase) with Diniza Hadebe, Estcourt, 30 August 2013. Diniza Hadebe stated that Matiwane was not only an activist but that he was active within the ANC structures and he served as the Secretary of the ANC Estcourt Branch.
8. Karis and Carter, From Protest to Challenge, 361–364, 633–634.
9. Rassool and Witz, ‘The 1952 Jan Van Riebeeck Tercentenary Festival’, 447–448.
10. Matiwane, A Treatise of Black Victimisation, Chs 9 & 10.
11. Farewell service programme (funeral), on the death, of D.C.O. Matiwane, 17 March 1918–26 April 1982; D. Welsh, The Rise and Fall of Apartheid (Johannesburg and Cape Town: Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2010), 73 & 122; Matiwane, A Treatise of Black Victimisation, 49–52; The Natal Witness, 29 April 1982; A. Drew, ed., South Africa's Radical Tradition: A Documentary History (Cape Town: UCT Press, 1997), 22, 230. S. Marks and S. Trapido, ‘The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism’, in S. Marks and S. Trapido, eds, The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism in Twentieth Century South Africa (London & New York: Longman, 1987), 53, note that following the state attacks on Africans at Sharpeville, it responded forcefully by banning political organisations and crushing working-class opposition. The detention of Matiwane and others took place within such a context.
12. Matiwane, A Treatise of Black Victimisation, Chs 8, 9, 10 and preface. It should be noted that as early as the 1950s, Matiwane was an anti-rent activist and his stance against the paying of rent seemed not to have changed much. In the mid-1960s, he refused to pay rent and used his incarcerations and legal wrangles with the Town Council and Standard Bank as his valid reasons. But it is clear that as an astute activist, his participation and organisation of the 1950s anti-rent protests in Johannesburg and Estcourt continued to have an impact in his life
13. S. Badat gives a detailed discussion on how the state tried to use banishments and expulsions as a means to oppress opposition to apartheid: S. Badat, The Forgotten People: Political Banishment under Apartheid (Leiden: Brill, 2013).
14. Matiwane, A Treatise of Black Victimisation, 73.
15. Here I have rephrased C. Rassool, ‘The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa’ (PhD dissertation, University of the Western Cape, 2004), 321.
16. J. and R. Simons, Class and Colour in South Africa, 490–495, 582, 602; B. Ndhlovu, ‘David Cecil Oxford Matiwane and Auto/Biographic Memory: Political Activism, Social Pragmatism and Individual Achievement in Twentieth Century South Africa’ (PhD dissertation, University of the Western Cape, 2016), Ch. 3.
17. Other activists engaged alternative instruments and strategies in addition to armed struggle initiatives as will be briefly explored later in this article.
18. P. Lalu, The Death of Hintsha: Postapartheid South Africa and the Shape of the Recurring Pasts (Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2009). Lalu also shows how race modelled the interpretation of our human past and how this continued in a post-apartheid South Africa.
19. S.M. Mkhize, ‘Class Consciousness, Non-racialism and Political Pragmatism: A Political Biography of Henry Selby Msimang, 1886–1982’ (PhD dissertation, University of Witwatersrand, 2015), 14–15.
20. The inference that the manuscript was written in the late 1960s and early 1970s was reached through incidences that are mentioned in it, for example the 65th birthday of Helen Joseph and the tenth anniversary of the Republic/Republic Day.
21. Matiwane, A Treatise of Black Victimisation, 69, 71; Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository (hereafter NAB), 1/EST 2/1/1/1/7, Case 1010/68 in the Magistrate's Court for the District of Estcourt held at Estcourt, David Cecil Oxford Matiwane vs The Town of Estcourt, affidavit by D.C.O. Matiwane, 24 September 1968.
22. Matiwane, A Treatise of Black Victimisation, 69; see also chs 9, 10.
23. C. Merrett, A Culture of Censorship: Secrecy and Intellectual Repression in South Africa (Cape Town: David Philip, 1994), 2.
24. Matiwane, A Treatise of Black Victimisation, 10, 50.
25. J. Depelchin, Silences in African History: Between the Syndromes of Discovery and Abolition (Dar es Salaam: Mkuki Na Nyota, 2005), 4; D. Cohen, The Combing of History (London & Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994); M. Foucault, ‘1 February 1984: Second Hour’, in F. Gros, F. Ewald and A. Fontana, eds, Michel Foucault: The Courage of the Truth (The Government of Self and Others II) (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
26. W. Woodward, P. Hayes and G. Minkley, eds, Deep Histories: Gender and Colonialism in Southern Africa (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2002), Introduction.
27. Interview with Dr Mvuyo Tom by Bongani Ndhlovu, East London, 5 September 2013. Tom, a medical doctor by training, was working at Edendale Hospital (Pietermaritzburg) in the early 1980s. As an ANC underground operative, he also harboured and supported members of Umkhonto we Sizwe. He served three years in jail for his political activism. In a democratic South Africa, he was able to freely practise as a doctor, and occupied prominent positions within the health sector and other institutions in South Africa including being a Vice Chancellor at Fort Hare University.
28. Interview with Dr Mvuyo Tom.
29. Karis and Carter, From Protest to Challenge, 333, 334, 361–364; Simpson, Umkhonto we Sizwe, 28.
30. Interview with Dr Mvuyo Tom; interview with Dr May Mashego by Bongani Ndhlovu, Willowfontein, 26 April 2014; interview with Mr Sipho Shezi by Bongani Ndhlovu, Rosebank, 29 August 2014. This act was carried through to the 1980s. Heroes Day (Sharpeville) commemorations were well attended in areas such as Soweto. In 1980, for example, more than 5000 persons were addressed by Dr Nthato Motlana: see The Natal Witness, 24 March 1980.
31. In addition to the 1976 Soweto uprising, the 1973 Durban strikes are another example of open resistance in the period between 1966 and 1979. It has to be pointed out that during the period under review, the Black Consciousness Movement was also a critical and outspoken voice against apartheid.
32. Interview with Dr Mvuyo Tom.
33. Interviews with Mr Sipho Shezi; Dr Mvuyo Tom. Also see interview by Mbhekiseni Magwenyane with Khaba Mkhize, n.p., 19 January 2005, Mabongi Mtshali private collection (the author has copies of the interview). In other ‘one-man’ protests, Matiwane used to carry a wooden cross to demonstrate against apartheid: see The Natal Witness, 29 April 1982.
34. Interview with Dr Zweli Mkhize by Bongani Ndhlovu, Cape Town, 24 July 2014; interview with Mr Sipho Shezi; The Natal Witness, 29 April 1982.
35. Interviews with Mr Sipho Shezi; Dr Mvuyo Tom; Dr Zweli Mkhize. Also see interview by Mbhekiseni Magwenyane with Khaba Mkhize.
36. D. Posel, ‘The Language of Domination, 1978–1983’, in Marks and Trapido, The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism, 419; Karis and Carter, eds, Challenge and Violence, 1953–1964, 362. Saleem Badat gives a detailed discussion on how the state tried to use banishments and expulsions as a means to oppress opposition to apartheid: see Badat, The Forgotten People.
37. A number of scholars have written widely on how the law and the justice system was used to fight discrimination and as an anti-apartheid platform, especially for political trails or anti-apartheid activists. These works include S. Pillay, ‘The Prerogative of Civilized Peoples: Apartheid, Law and Politics’, Comparative Studies of South Africa and the Middle East, 34, 2 (2014); Abel, Politics By Other Means.
38. Pillay, ‘The Prerogative of Civilized Peoples’, 294.
39. See illiquid case no. WLD 588/1970, David Cecil Oxford Matiwane vs The Standard Bank of South Africa; South African Law Reports, Natal Provincial Division, Matiwane vs Cecil Nathal, Beattie & Co, vol. 1, 1972; Matiwane, A Treatise of Black Victimisation, 85–88.
40. Mkhize, ‘Class Consciousness, Non-racialism and Political Pragmatism’, 179–213.
41. Illiquid case no. WLD 588/1970, David Cecil Oxford Matiwane vs The Standard Bank of South Africa; South African Law Reports, Natal Provincial Division, Matiwane vs Cecil Nathal, Beattie & Co, vol. 1, 1972, 224–23; Matiwane, A Treatise of Black Victimisation, 85–88.
42. Illiquid case no. WLD 588/1970, David Cecil Oxford Matiwane vs The Standard Bank of South Africa, correspondence with the Local Transportation Board, Pietermaritzburg, annexures D, E, F & G (transfer document), dated 28 October 1958, 5 February 1959, 27 October 1958 and 16 September 1958 respectively.
43. This was a matter Matiwane repeatedly picked up in a series of letters to the bank. In response, the Standard Bank's attorneys threatened him with the Order of Perpetual Silence if he continued to write ‘stupid’ letters to the bank demanding payment of his money. But he refused to be silenced. He informed them that he was not threatened by such letters and questioned the bank attorneys (Cecil Nathan, Beattie & Co) for an unprofessionally written letter. In fact, he challenged the wording of the letter before a judge and the award was in his favour. Using this as an example, he noted that it was not only politicians through their legislations who silenced people, but commercial banks also followed the same trend as advocates of apartheid: see Ch. 13 of his unpublished manuscript; South African Law Reports, Natal Provincial Division, Matiwane vs Cecil Nathal, Beattie & Co, vol. 1, 1972, 222–231.
44. Illiquid case no. WLD 588/1970, David Cecil Oxford Matiwane vs The Standard Bank of South Africa; South African Law Reports, Natal Provincial Division, Matiwane vs Cecil Nathal, Beattie & Co, vol. 1, 1972, 224–23; Matiwane, A Treatise of Black Victimisation, 85–88.
45. Matiwane, A Treatise of Black Victimisation, Chs 14, 13.
46. Illiquid case no. WLD 588/1970, David Cecil Oxford Matiwane vs The Standard Bank of South Africa; South African Law Reports, Natal Provincial Division, Matiwane vs Cecil Nathal, Beattie & Co, vol. 1, 1972; Matiwane, A Treatise of Black Victimisation, 85–88.
47. Ibid.
48. Matiwane, A Treatise of Black Victimisation, 35–36, 54; South African Law Report, Decision of the Supreme Court of South Africa-Natal Provincial Division, R. v. Matiwane (1), vol. 2, 1961.
49. Alan Paton Centre, Peter Brown Papers, PC 16/5/2/1/1 – Personal Correspondence including letters re. loans 1960–1961, letter from David Cecil Matiwane to Peter Brown, 29 July 1961 and letter from Peter Brown to D.C.O. Matiwane, 19 October 1961.
50. Simons and Simons, Class and Colour in South Africa, 494; Drew, South Africa's Radical Tradition, 32.
51. Interview with Dr Zweli Mkhize; The Natal Witness, 29 April 1982, 31 March 2010, 16 June 1980.
52. As a member of the University of Natal Medical School SRC, Mkhize was running the SRC's printing press and they were able to reproduce during the night the ANC's political material for mass distribution. See interviews with Dr Zweli Mkhize; Dr May Mashego.
53. NAB, NPD Illiquid Civil Cases 1980, 10180–1035, A20, case number I.1024/80 D.C.O. Matiwane vs The Minister of Police, plaintiff further particulars to particulars of claim by D.C.O. Matiwane, 27 November 1980.
54. Interview with Dr Zweli Mkhize; The Natal Witness, 29 April 1982.
55. The Natal Witness, 29 April 1982; interview with Dr Zweli Mkhize. See also to NPD Illiquid Civil Cases 1980, 10180–1035, A20, case number I.1024/80, In the Supreme Court of South Africa, The Matter between D.C.O. Matiwane (plaintiff) and The Minister of Police (defendant); Echo, 13 August 1981.
56. Interviews with Dr Zweli Mkhize; Dr May Mashego; The Witness, 6 April 2009; 31 March 2010.
57. Interview with Dr Mvuyo Tom; amnesty decision regarding the application of Joel George Martins, matter AM 6450/97, www.sabctrc.saha.org.za/documents/decisions/59139.htm, accessed 25 September 2013; interview with Mr Sipho Shezi; interview with Dr May Mashego.
58. Sipho Shezi also stated that his brother, Bheka Shezi, politically inspired him to initiate the formation of the league. Bheka Shezi was a civil rights lawyer who was working for well-established civil rights lawyers Victoria and Griffiths Mxenge: interview with Mr Sipho Shezi.
59. The DCO Matiwane Youth League became an affiliate of UDF and its members continued to play a meaningful role in the political life of the country especially in KwaZulu and Natal.
60. The Natal Witness, 15 & 16 July 1977.
61. Interviews with Mr Sipho Shezi; Dr Mvuyo Tom; Dr May Mashego; The Witness, 31 March 2010.
62. Interview with Dr Mvuyo Tom.
63. Interviews with Dr Mvuyo Tom; Dr May Mashego; Mr Sipho Shezi.
64. These professionals were also involved in the underground activities of the ANC. In addition to political education, members of the resource team were able to identify and link capable members of the league with ANC structures in Swaziland and Lesotho. Other members included persons such as Dr Norman Bantwini ‘Ngciphe’, Dr May Mashego, Dr Faith Matlaopane and Dr Nomasonto Nkosi. In addition, activists such as Dr Joe Phaahla, Nomlayezo Mxenge, Mafika Gwala, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, Rev Mxolisi Xundu, Rev Wesley Mabuza, Jay Naidoo and Sipho ‘Machina’ Xulu played meaningful roles in the life of the League.
65. Interview with Mr Sipho Shezi.
66. Jabulani Sithole, ‘The ANC Underground, Armed Actions and Popular Resistance in Pietermaritzburg and Surrounding Natal Midlands Townships’, in SADET, The Road To Democracy (1980–1990) (Pretoria: Unisa Press, 2010), 227; interview with Dr Mvuyo Tom.
67. Cape Archive, IDP 3/135, P 83/4/133, objectionable object, D.G.O. [sic] Matiwane Youth League (T-Shirt); interviews with Dr Mvuyo Tom; Mr Sipho Shezi; interview conducted by Howard Barrell with Dikobe Martins, Johannesburg, 20 November 1990, resource hosted by the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory, www.nelsonmandela.org, accessed 28 February 2014.
68. Interviews with Dr Mvuyo Tom; Mr Sipho Shezi.
69. Interviews with Dr Zweli Mkhize; Dr Mvuyo Tom; Sithole, ‘The ANC Underground’, 225–229.
70. Farewell Service (funeral) Programme of D.C.O. Matiwane, 17 March 1918–26 April 1982; The Natal Witness Echo, 6 May 1982. Matiwane's daughter, Ms Phumzile Mvelase (née Matiwane) remembered that after her speech at her father's memorial service, she was invited to deliver a well-received address at the Edendale Lay Ecumenical Centre on the occasion of 1,000,000 signatures against apartheid: interview by Bongani Ndhlovu with Ms Phumzile Mvelase, Estcourt, 30 October 2014.
71. The Natal Witness Echo, 6 May 1982.
72. D.C.O. Matiwane was cremated and his ashes were later buried with his wife in 1997. He was cremated in fulfilment of his wish for he did not want a white medical doctor who wanted his brain to have access to it after his death. See also interview by Bongani Ndhlovu with Phumzile Mvelase; interview by Mbhekiseni Magwenyane with ma Ndlovu Sokhela, n.p., n.d.; The Natal Witness, 29 April 1982; The Natal Witness, 19 May 1997; interview with Dr Zweli Mkhize; interview by Bongani Ndhlovu with Mazwi Msimang, Pietermaritzburg, 29 August 2013; interview with Mr Sipho Shezi.
73. Farewell (funeral) Service Programme of D.C.O. Matiwane, 17 March 1918–26 April 1982.
74. Interview with Mr Sipho Shezi.
75. Farewell (funeral) Service Programme of D.C.O. Matiwane; interview by Bongani Ndhlovu with Dr May Mashego.
76. Interview with Dr Mvuyo Tom.
77. Inkatha was a quasi-politico-cultural organisation which became the Inkatha Freedom Party in the post-1994 South Africa. Its President was Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi who was the head of the apartheid-created KwaZulu government.
78. Interview with Dr Mvuyo Tom.
79. Mahlobo was an MK member trained in Eastern Europe and later became a commanding officer in the South African National Defence Force. Ngcobo, like Matiwane, largely operated alone. Tom described him as a lone ranger who withstood interrogation and served a prison sentence at Pretoria Maximum Prison: interview by with Dr Mvuyo Tom; Human Sciences Research Council, ‘Unsung Heroes and Heroines of the Liberation Struggle: Draft Report on the Liberation Struggle and Liberation Heritage Sites’, accessed from Msunduzi Museum Library, Pietermartizburg, June 2013, 255.
80. Interview with Dr Mvuyo Tom. Ngciphe was killed along with 41 fellow activists. While Ngciphe's death was mourned by black doctors at Edendale Hospital, it was a cause for celebration for many white doctors. This showed how entrenched racism was: interview with Dr May Mashego.
81. See interviews with Dr Zweli Mkhize; Dr Mvuyo Tom; Dr May Mashego; interview by Bongani Ndhlovu with Mabongi Mtshali, former head of Education Department at Natal Museum (now KwaZulu-Natal Museum), Pietermaritzburg, 3 March 2014; address by the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, Mr Jeff Radebe, during the Dr Enos Sikhakhane Second Memorial Lecture, Pietermaritzburg, 5 December 2009 – information sourced from www.justice.gov.za, accessed 17 November 2014; Mr J Radebe, Minister of Public Works, farewell address for Sipho Shezi, Director-General, Department of Public Works, 14 January 1999 – sourced from www.publicworks.gov.za, accessed 25 February 2015; interview by Bongani Ndhlovu with Mr Sipho Shezi, Rosebank, 29 August 2014; Profile of Deputy Minister of Transport Ms Lydia Sindisiwe Chikunga on www.transport.gov.za/Home/MinistryofTransport/ProfileOfTheDeputyMinister.aspx, accessed 4 April 2015.
82. Interview with Mr Sipho Shezi.
83. P. Lalu, ‘Sara's Suicide: History and the Representational Limit’, Kronos, 26, August (2000). F. Moten, In The Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition (London: University of Minnesota Press, 2003) also analyses how ‘objects’ have resisted throughout the ages.