APARTHEID, 1948–1994 SERIESADVISORS GeoffEley,UniversityofMichigan LyndalRoper,UniversityofOxford Saul Dubow previously taught at the University of Sussex and is now based at Queen Mary, University of London. Born and brought up in Cape Town, he has degrees from the universities of Cape Town and Oxford.Hehaspublishedwidelyonthedevelopmentofracialsegregation and apartheid in all its aspects: political, ideological, and intellectual. He hasspecialinterestsinthehistoryofrace,ethnicity,andnationalidentity, aswellasimperialism,colonialscience,andglobalcircuitsofknowledge. HeisontheeditorialboardoftheJournalofSouthernAfricanStudies. Apartheid, 1948–1994 SAUL DUBOW 1 3 GreatClarendonStreet,Oxford,OX26DP, UnitedKingdom OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwide.Oxfordisaregisteredtrademarkof OxfordUniversityPressintheUKandincertainothercountries #SaulDubow2014 Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted FirstEditionpublishedin2014 Impression:1 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedin aretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,withoutthe priorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress,orasexpresslypermitted bylaw,bylicence,orundertermsagreedwiththeappropriatereprographics rightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproductionoutsidethescopeofthe aboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment,OxfordUniversityPress,atthe addressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisworkinanyotherform andyoumustimposethissameconditiononanyacquirer PublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmericabyOxfordUniversityPress 198MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NY10016,UnitedStatesofAmerica BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2013948419 ISBN 978–0–19–955066–1(hbk.) 978–0–19–955067–8(pbk.) Asprintedandboundby CPIGroup(UK)Ltd,Croydon,CR04YY LinkstothirdpartywebsitesareprovidedbyOxfordingoodfaithand forinformationonly.Oxforddisclaimsanyresponsibilityforthematerials containedinanythirdpartywebsitereferencedinthiswork. PREFACE As I complete this book on a sunny winter’s day in Cape Town, with RobbenIslandvisibleintheneardistance,NelsonMandelasurviveson life support in hospital. The world waits for the inevitable, pausing to reflect on his immortality. The presidency acts to control the political aspectsofMandela’slegacy,whilemembersofhisfamilyareinvolvedin anunseemlyspatoverthesiteofhisburial.AstheshadowsofMandela’s afterlifelengthen,thepoliticsofmemoryandmemorializationareevery- where in full display. Mandela will surely be remembered as the single mostimportantfigureinthetransitiontothe‘new’SouthAfrica.What ofthesystemhededicatedhislifetooverthrowingandwhichinhisown personhesomagnificentlytranscended? Agenerationafteritsformalabolitionin1994apartheidrecedesfrom immediate memory. The word retains such powerful valency that its meanings have slipped their original bonds to be universalized and applied to other contexts. Apartheid is, and will surely always remain, primarilyassociatedwithracism,exploitation,andcolonialism.Butthese are general concepts whose precise meanings are themselves deeply contested. For all its familiarity, apartheid resists easy definition. It is difficultenoughtocapturethenatureofthesystematanyonemoment in time, even more elusive when attempting to comprehend it as a totality. The problem is made even more intractable by the fact that the recent past is not yet properly historical. Apartheid is significantly constitutedbytheslipperinessofcollectivememory;impulsestoremem- berandtoforgetexistintensionwitheachother. v PREFACE Whites have every reason to forget the odious system that they had actively supported for so many years. Indeed, by the time the ‘new’ SouthAfricacameintobeing,itwasalreadyquitedifficulttofindanyone who admitted to having actually supported apartheid. Government supporters, including President F. W. de Klerk, were well practised in versions of denial before 1994: they claimed that apartheid was misun- derstood; that it was originally well intentioned but somehow became malign; that its outrages were perpetrated by others; that the cruelties andcrimeswerekeptfromthem.EvenastheTruthandReconciliation Commissionconfirmedsomeofapartheid’sworstatrocities,amiasmaor collectiveamnesiabegantospread.Mostordinarywhitepeoplewanted to ‘move on’ without remaining trapped by the past. A collective embraceofMadiba(Mandela)wouldexpiateallsins. For some young politicized blacks, such as those in the ANC Youth League,thereremainseveryreasontoremindaudiencesconstantlyabout theevilsofapartheidandtheheroismofthosewhoopposedit.Hopesof restitutionandpersonaladvancementdependonthis.Yetbynomeansall youngblacksseepoliticsasthewayofthefuture.Manyarealienatedfrom, or disillusioned by, the political classes. Theeducated and the ambitious find other options more attractive. Whereas the past continues to be a usableinstrumentforsome,othersfinditanalmostunspeakableburden. By the time of Mandela’s presidential inauguration there was anec- dotalevidencethatmanyblackyoungsterswerebeginningtolosetouch withthesystemtheyandtheirparentshadfoughttooverthrow.Thisis not altogether surprising. For one thing, several of the key institutions and legislative underpinnings of apartheid had begun to fall into abey- ance from the mid-1980s. Students and teenagers in 1994 would have knownmore aboutthecivil politicalstrifeofthetransitionperiodthan thesystemthatgaverisetoit.Insocietiesemergingfromextremeforms of repression, ‘born-frees’ (as the post-1994 generation are sometimes referredtoinSouthAfrica)areoftendisinclinedtodwelltoodeeplyon the pain and indignities suffered by their elders. Parents were often concernedtoprotectchildrenfromthetraumaandroutinehumiliation associatedwiththepasslaws,segregatedfacilities,andotherremindersof vi PREFACE socialinferiority.Whowouldwishtoblightchildren’sfutureswithsuch memoriesofthepast? Academic history may not be the only way to comprehend the past butitremainsindispensable.Fortunately,therearenolackofoutstand- ing guides for students seeking concise, interpretative histories of mod- ernSouthAfrica.Thebestofthese,includingthosebyWilliamBeinart, NigelWorden,andLeonardThompson,wereallconceivedaroundthe time of political transition.1 Apartheid figures strongly in these works though their scope is chronologically and thematically broader, includ- ing the history of the country as a whole. A number of texts seek to understandapartheidmoreclosely.Severalofthemhavetitlesincorpor- ating the phrase ‘rise and fall’.2 Each targets specific markets and has particularstrengths.WorgerandClarkaddresscollegestudents;Guelke highlightstheinternationaldimensionsofapartheid;Welsh’sempirically detailed and insightful account is particularly strong on the politics of apartheid’s demise. While none of these histories could be said to be teleological,theirtitlessuggestanarrativearcwheretheendofapartheid iscodedintoitsorigins. This bookseeks to do something slightly different. In2007 Christo- pher Wheeler of Oxford University Press invited me to contribute to a newhistoricalseriesdesignedtoaddresssubjectsthatwouldrevisitmajor eventsandproblemsinEuropeanandworldhistory.Theworkingbrief forcontributorstotheserieswastoreappraise‘turningpoints’which,for this or that circumstance, might so easily have turned other ways. Wheeler had in mind Philip Roth’s whimsical parody of history, ‘where everything unexpected in its own time is chronicled on the pageasinevitable’.3 1 W.Beinart,Twentieth-CenturySouthAfrica(Oxford,1994);N.Worden,TheMak- ingofSouthAfrica:Conquest,SegregationandApartheid(Oxford,1994);L.Thompson,A HistoryofSouthAfrica(NewHaven,1990);alsoR.Ross,AConciseHistoryofSouthAfrica (Cambridge,1999). 2 N.L.ClarkandW.H.Worger,SouthAfrica:TheRiseandFallofApartheid(New York,2004);A.Guelke,RethinkingtheRiseandFallofApartheid(London,2005);David Welsh,TheRiseandFallofApartheid(Johannesburg,2009);alsoP.EricLouw.TheRise, Fall,andLegacyofApartheid(Westport,Conn.,2004). 3 PhilipRoth,ThePlotAgainstAmerica(London,2004),114. vii PREFACE Roth’sobservationabouthistoricalinevitabilityhasparticularsalience in the South African present because the end of apartheid, and the victory of the ANC, led by Nelson Mandela, is frequently told in termsofanarrativeofresistanceandredemption.Thisbookisintended to challenge such assumptions. I neither assume that racial segregation was bound to transmute into the yet harsher version of apartheid, nor take for granted that the African National Congress, led by Nelson Mandela, would eventually overthrow white supremacy. I am sceptical of‘turningpoints’andalerttopathsnottaken. In order to understand apartheid as a complex, protean historical phenomenon, we need to engage as well as to stand back. Serious students of the subject have to refamiliarize themselves with events, individuals,andinstitutionswhoseimportanceonceseemedself-evident butarenowapttobeforgottenorpassedoverwithoutcomment.Atthe sametimewehavetodefamiliarizeapartheid.Thisrequiresadeliberate process of distancing so as to render aspects that once seemed obvious and self-evident rather more unusual and curious. As a South African living in Britain, I have had to approach my teaching of apartheid as somethingofanoutsider.Whilethismayhavesomedisadvantages,italso opensupfreshpossibilities.IamgratefultomanyofthestudentsIhave taughtforforcingmetoseemyowncountryinnewways.Ifthehistorical pastisanothercountry,weareallinasensevisitorsandexplorers. WhenIfirstcametostudyinBritainasadoctoralstudentintheearly 1980s, I was part of a group of postgraduates who were concerned to elucidatetheworkingofsegregationandapartheidinthehopethatthis would contribute to its demise. South African history was deeply con- testedandpoliticalcommitmentscouldeasilybereadoffthepage.One line of academic engagement laid emphasis on the need to break down the view of the South African state as monolithic and all-powerful. Another vital area of investigation was devoted to the study of anti- apartheid struggle and resistance, particularly as seen through the labour movement, within communities, and in political organizations. Overall, there was then a broad balance between those who were interested in theworkingsofpowerandthosewhowereconcernedwithunderstanding viii PREFACE the predicaments and choices of the majority of people excluded from power. This balance has shifted in recent years. We now know a great deal moreaboutresistanceandtheliberationmovementsthanwedidinthe 1980s. There has been enormous growth in studies of political oppos- ition.Synopticmulti-volumehistoriesincludingthoseproducedbythe SouthAfricanDemocracyEducationTrust,aswellasthelongrunning From Protest to Challenge project so ably steered by Tom Karis, Gwen- dolen Carter, and Gail Gerhart, have transformed the field. Memoirs by anti-apartheid figures, once known to the general public only—if at all—bynameandaffiliation,havethickenedthehistoricalrecord,adding texture and personal anecdote. Many new doctoral dissertations have been produced since the 1990s about different aspects and forms of resistance. A host of excellent edited collections have emerged out of conferencesdedicatedtounderstandingtheanti-apartheidstruggle.This bookhasbenefitedenormouslyfromsuchprodigiousscholarship. Conversely, concerns with central state power and ideology during the apartheid era have lagged behind. True, senior scholars like Dan O’Meara and Hermann Giliomee have followed up their earlier path- breaking work on Afrikaner nationalism with major new studies. In addition, there have been fresh overviews of South African economic history produced by scholars like Charles Feinstein and Nicoli Nattrass and Jeremy Seekings. But these are exceptions to a more general rule. In South Africa, as elsewhere, new historical studies of state ideology, power,and political economyhavenot keptpace withthe rise ofsocial and cultural history whose purview has expanded imaginatively into realmsthatonceseemedmarginal.Whatwasonceacorrectivetomaster narratives has become the norm; popular history ‘from below’ has in manywayssurpasseditsstaidoldantagonist,‘historyfromabove’. Theseconsiderablegainshavenotcomewithoutcosts,whichinclude fragmentationofthehistoricalexperienceandlossofanalyticalconnec- tions.Thisbookrepresentsanefforttoreintegrate,inabroadinterpret- ative and synoptic manner, histories of state power and of resistance in South Africa. One important question that seems to me to be insuffi- cientlyaddressedisnotwhyapartheidwasdefeated,buthowitsurvived so long. This requires a close understanding of the ways in which the ix