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This is to certify that the
dissertation entitled
A Context for Violence: Social and Historical

Underpinnings of Indo-African Violence
in a South African Community

presented by

Ashwin G. Desai

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

Ph.D. degree in Sociology

 

 

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A CONTEXT FOR VIOLENCE: SOCIAL AND HISTORICAL
UNDERPINNINGS OF lNDO-AFRICAN VIOLENCE

IN A SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNITY

By

Ashwin G. Desai

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Sociology

1993

 

ABSTRACT

A CONTEXT FOR VIOLENCE: SOCIAL AND HISTORICAL
UNDERPINNINGS OF INDO-AFRICAN VIOLENCE
IN A SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNITY

By

Ashwin G. Desai

This study seeks to examine the basis for lndo-African conflict in Natal. South
Africa, and its impact on the consciousness of these communities through an
analysis of the 1945 and 1989 riots. In order to understand the basis for tensions
that underlay lndo-African relations in the two periods under discussion, the complex
set of economic, political and other socio-cultural variables characterizing the social
organization of Indian and African people. and the relationship between these, is
researched.

Ethnic divisions and conflict in South Africa are viewed as either being
primordial or the result of state manipulation. This study shows how ethnicity is
constructed and manipulated from above. Ethnicity has an existence beyond a
mental construct. Whatever ethnicity’s imaginary and ideological status, it also has
a real. concrete and material existence.

The study also critiques a number of widely held views in South African social

science on the nature of collective violence. It shows that participants in the riots do

 

Ashwin G. Desai
not represent the “scum of the earth.“ Rather, participants are typical of the
neighborhood in which the riots occurred. Riots cannot be seen as instrumental or
oonsummatory; rather, they are a mixture of both. The study illustrates that a more
useful approach is to explore the changing balance over time between (what one
may call) the expressive and instrumental aspects of different types of disorders. To
divide the actions of individuals into rational versus emotional-irrational types, as
previous studies on the riots have done, is to deny the complexity of human
behavior.

Almost all theories of civil violence have at some time been hailed as
capturing the ultimate origins and nature of civil violence-wherever and whenever
it occurs. This study supports the view of Rule (1988) and McPhail (1971) that riots
are complex phenomena that cannot be understood by utilizing one theory. Riots
display a heterogeneity and are best explained by a combination of theories.

The central contribution of this study is to discern, first, the general conditions
engendering hostility between the host society and middleman groups. It then

specifies under what conditions this hostility can translate into violence.

REFERENCES:

McPhail, C. (1971). Civil disorder participation: A critical examination of recent
research. AmeucanfieciclcgrcaLBexreu 3f:

Rule. J. (1988). Ibegfiesgtgivihdglence. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Dissertation advisor: Dr. Vlfilliam Faunce

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

During the writing ofthis thesis, I have incurred a number of intellectual debts.
In South Africa, Karen Kohler was a constant source of support. Professor Vishnu
Padayachee, sometime Special Assistant to the Vice-Chancellor of the University
of Durban-Westville, pointed me to new sources of information and new intellectual
directions.

At Michigan State University, l owe the greatest gratitude to Professor Bill
Faunce. Officially designated my 'advisor,“ he was so much more than that. Bill
was an excellent supervisor, not only in a technical sense, but was a kind, sensitive.
and understanding human being throughout my Ph.D. program. Bill’s wife, Sheila,
cheerfully put up with phone calls at odd hours and provided encouragement and
wisdom at crucial times. The rest of my committee, Professors Manning,
Vanderpool, Marger, and John Hinnant from Anthropology. made valuable

contributions which enabled me to sharpen my analysis.

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ............................................ viii
LIST OF MAPS ............................................... ix
LIST OF ACRONYMS .......................................... x
INTRODUCTION ............................................. 1
Chapter
1. LITERATURE REVIEW, THEORY, AND METHODO-
LOGICAL ISSUES ....................................... 5
1.1 Introduction ....................................... 5
1.2 Review of Existing Literature on the Riots
of 1949 and 1985 .................................. 5
1.3 Review of Literature on Collective Violence ............. 16
1.3.1 The Irrationalists ............................. 16
1.3.2 The Emergent Norm Hypothesis ................ 20
1.3.3 The "Collective Rational“ Approach .............. 22
1.3.4 Composition and Causes ...................... 25
1.3.5 Ethnic Competition and Conflict ................. 34
1.3.6 The Middleman Minority ....................... 39
1.3.7 The Debate Over the Origin and Per-
sistence of Ethnic Identification ................. 45
1.4 Explaining Collective Violence ....................... 49
1.5 Data and Methods ................................. 52
1.6 A Note on Terminology ............................. 58
1.7 Summary ........................................ 60
2. PREDISPOSING CONDITIONS TO THE 1949 AND
1985 RIOTS ........................................... 61
2.1 Introduction ...................................... 61
2.2 The Political Economy of Natal ....................... 62

 

2.3 The City of Durban ................................ 65
2.4 The Racial Hierarchy of Durban ...................... 68
2.4.1 Nonracialism and Segmented Labor Markets ...... 68
2.4.2 Property and Housing ......................... 81
2.4.3 Traders .................................... 86
2.4.4 Transport .................................. 92
2.5 The Crisis of Segregation in the 1940s ................. 94
2.6 The Intervening Years: Birth and Early Develop-
ment of Apartheid (1950-1963) ...................... 101
2.7 The Political Economy of Natal/Durban (1963 to
1985) .......................................... 106
2.8 Indo-African Relations on the Shopfloor ............... 115
2.9 Political Organizations in the Indian Community ......... 117
2.10 African Political Organizations ....................... 119
2.11 The UDF and the Building of>Nonracialism ............. 121
2.12 The Crisis of Apartheid-The 19803 .................. 122
2.13 Squatter Settlements. Resistance, and Violence ........ 127
2.14 Summary ....................................... 133
THE RIOTS OF 1949 AND 1985 .......................... 135
3.1 Introduction ..................................... 135
3.2 Cato Manor, The Center of the Storm ................. 135
3.3 The 1949 "Disorders" ............................. 146
3.3.1 The "Spark" ............................... 146
3.3.2 The Second Phase .......................... 149
3.3.3 After the Violence ........................... 152
3.4 Composition of the Rioters ......................... 155
3.4.1 Ama/aita Gangs ............................ 156
3.4.2 Ngoma Dance Groups ....................... 159
3.4.3 Ricksha Pullers ............................. 160
3.4.4 Dock Workers .............................. 161
3.4.5 Civilian Guards ............................. 162
3.5 1949—Spontaneous or Organized? ................... 162
3.6 1949—Anti-lndian or Anti-Apartheid? .................. 169
3.7 Inanda—1985 .................................... 181
3.7.1 Overview of the Violence ..................... 181
3.7.2 History of Inanda Prior to the Cato Manor
Removals ................................. 182
3.7.3 The Expansion of Inanda ..................... 187
3.7.4 Authority Structure of Inanda .................. 189
3.7.5 Social Structure and Social Relations ........... 191
3.7.6 Landlords and Traders ....................... 193

vi

 

3.8 The Build-Up to August 1985 ....................... 196
3.8.1 The Water Crisis ............................ 197
3.8.2 The Department of CAD and the Building of
Newtown .................................. 197
3.8.3 Evictions and the State/Landlord/Tenant
Crisis .................................... 199
3.9 Inanda—Sitting on the Time Bomb ................... 203
3.9.1 Tenants/Consumers and Indian Landlords/
Retailers .................................. 203
3.9.2 Indian and Afriwn Landlords and Retailers ....... 207
3.9.3 The "Spark“ for the Violence .................. 209
3.10 Inanda—August 1985 .............................. 210
3.11 Analysis of the 1985 Violence ....................... 212
3.11.1 Overview ............................ 212
3.11.2 Composition of the Rioters .............. 214
3.12 Summary ....................................... 227
4. ANALYSIS, RECOMMENDATIONS, AND CONCLUSIONS ..... 231
4.1 Introduction ..................................... 231
4.2 Summary and Analysis ............................ 231
4.3 State Responses to the Persistence of Ethnic
Identities ....................................... 265
4.4 The Future of Indo-African Relations ................. 272
4.5 Cultural Pluralism and the Politics of Nation
Building ........................................ 277
4.6 Further Research on Collective Violence .............. 281
4.7 Contribution of the Study and Concluding Remarks ...... 286
APPENDIX—GLOSSARY ..................................... 289
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................ 290

vii

 

LIST OF TABLES

Population by Race, Metropolitan Durban, 1936-1951 .......... 69
Urban Afrimn Population by Gender, 1911-1951 .............. 69
The Number and Proportion of Trading Licenses Held by

Race Groups in Durban, 1930-1946 ........................ 86
Racial Composition of Manufacturing Employment in the

Main Industrial Regions ................................. 106
Racial Composition of the Labor Force: Durban-

Pinetown, 1960-1976 ................................... 107
Educational Attainment of the Economically Active

Population of South Africa, 1981 .......................... 108
The Number of Trading Licenses Held, by Race, in Durban,

1950-1975 ........................................... 109
The Number of Families Disqualified by the Group Areas

Act, by Race: 1950-1972 ............................... 111
Population of Inanda, 1977-1985 .......................... 189

viii

 

:“Sfi’h>

LIST OF MAPS

Location of the Study Area ................................. 4
Population Distribution in Durban: Late 19403-Early 19503 ...... 66
Population Group Areas in Greater Durban in the 19803 ....... 112
Informal Settlements Around Durban in the Mid-19803 ......... 188

 

LIST OF ACRONYMS

ANC—African National Congress

BAAB—Bantu Affairs Administration Board
CAD—Department of Cooperation and Development
CBD—Central business district

COSAS—Congress of South African Students
FOSATU—Federation of South African Trade Unions
GDP—Gross domestic product

HOD—House of Delegates

ICU-Industrial and Commercial Workers Union
LA— waZulu Legislative Assembly

NDB—Natalia Development Board
NEUM—Non-European Unity Movement

NIC—Natal Indian Congress

PAC—Pan Africanist Congress

PNAB—Port Natal Administration Board
SACTU—South African Congress of Trade Unions
SAIC—South Afrimn Indian Council

SADT—South African Development and Trust Land

SPF—Surplus Peoples Project

 

TIC-Transvaal Indian Congress
TUCSA—Trade Union Council of South Africa

UDF-United Democratic Front

xi

 

INTRODUCTION

On Thursday, 13 January 1949, an Indian shopkeeper assaulted ‘an
African youth, George Madondo. This incident set in motion a chain of events
that came to be known as the "1949 Durban riots.“ The riots left 1,087 people
injured and 142 dead. Of the injured, 541 were African and 503 Indian. Eighty-
seven Africans and 50 Indians lost their lives in the conflict. Some 710 stores
and 1,532 dwellings were damaged or destroyed. The overwhelming majority of
these were owned by Indians, and the attackers were Africans.

Thirty-six years later, a school strike and boycott spread out of the African
township of Umlazi and engulfed KwaMashu, Clerrnont, Lamontville, and Inanda
in quick succession. In Inanda. the only area where Indians and Africans lived
in close proximity, the violence took a particular form: gangs of youths began
threatening Indian shopkeepers, landlords, and residents.

Within a week, 42 Indian-owned shops and businesses and as many
houses were destroyed. One thousand Indian residents were forced to flee and
seek refuge in the Indian township of Phoenix. Three Indians were stabbed and
burnt to death in the border area between Phoenix and Inanda. More than 60
Africans were killed in the violent upsurge, mainly at the hands of the police.
During the violence. hundreds of armed Indian vigilantes massed on the border

of Phoenix and Inanda. About 3,000 of them took to the streets of Phoenix and

 

2
surrounding Indian townships in a backlash against looters and rioters. The
groupwas armed with shotguns, revolvers, swords, pangas. slashers, sticks, iron
rods, and choppers.

This study seeks to examine the basis for such Indo-African conflict and
its impact on the consciousness of these communities. The effect of the erosion
of apartheid on lndo—African relations will be assessed.

The different histories, modes of incorporation, and the ecologies and
economies of differing regions have an impact on the form that ethnic
consciousness takes. This study will be situated within the context of changes
in the political economy of the region in the post-war period.

In order to understand the basis for the tension that underlay lndo-African
relations in the two periods under discussion, the complex set of economic,
political, and other socio-cultural variables characterizing the social organization
of the Indian and African people, and the relationship between these, needs to
be researched. This relationship must be situated within the broad structural
context of hierarchy, domination, and mobilization.

The major research questions to be addressed are:

1. What were the sources of Indo-African antagonism?

2. What were the general conditions exacerbating antagonisms?

3. Why did the violence take a particular form?

4. Who participated in the violence?

The dissertation is organized in the following way: Chapter 1 reviews the

literature on the 1949 and 1985 riots, on studies of collective violence, and on the

 

3
relationship between ethnic competition and violence. The chapter also lays out
the methods used in data collection in this study.

Chapter 2 presents the predisposing conditions to the 1949 and 1985
violence. Particular attention is paid to the ecxmomic conditions in the respective
periods and their effects on Indians and Africans, the nature and character of
political organizations formed or existing in Natal in the 19403 and 19803, and
the crises in segregation and apartheid in those years.

Chapter 3 focuses on the precipitating conditions to both riots and on the
riots themselves. The social relations prevailing in Cato Manor in the 19403 and
in Inanda in the 19803 are examined. In the analysis of the riots, particular
attention is paid to the composition of the rioters, the organization of the riots,
and whether they were anti-Indian or anti-apartheid.

Chapter 4, the final chapter, presents the summary and conclusions of the
study. It then analyzes the possible impact of the move away from apartheid on
thefuture of lndo-African relations. Suggestions forfurther research on collective
violence and policy recommendations on the future of squatter communities are

then presented.

 

 

 

 

 

 

SOUTH AFRICA

    

CapeTevn I

ort Elizabeth

 

 

 

Map 1: Location of the study area.

 

CHAPTER 1
LITERATURE REVIEW, THEORY, AND METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES

1.1 IDILQdumiQn

This chapter reviews, first. the literature on the 1949 and 1985 riots,
pointing to some of the weaknesses in the existing academic explanations of
these incidents and the general literature on collective violence. It then focuses
on the issue of ethnic competition and violence. These alternative theoretical
approaches will be examined with a view to ascertaining the extent to which they
offer a satisfactory explanation as to the conditions under which ethnic conflict
may lead to violence directed at specific ethnic groups. especially when there
exists a history of competition over the differential allocation of resources. The

final part of the chapter provides an overview of the methods of data collection.

1.2I3' [E'l' H I ll 8'!
MM

It may be useful as background to the riot studies to begin this review with
a brief exposition of some of the more important writings in the general literature
on race relations in South Africa.

Pluralists have written most widely on the nature of race relations in South
Africa. A prolific writer from this school, van den Berghe (1967), has argued in

this tradition that:

 

6

Social classes in the Marxian sense of the relationships to the means of

production exist by means of definition. as they must in any capitalist

country, but they are not meaningful social realities. Clearly,
pigmentation, rather than ownership of land or capital is the most

significant criterion of status in South Africa. (p. 267)

Wolpe (1970) pointed out that in explaining the position of, and
relationships between, social groups, van den Berghe makes class irrelevant,
and socioeconomic differences are treated as the outcome of racial definitions
(p. 159). Relationships between social groups are seen solely as a function of
racial ideology. attitudes. and prejudices. A member of a racial group is treated
unequally, van den Berghe asserts, because s/he is defined as a member of that
group.

Questions concerning the conditions in which such definitions or attitudes
of hostility arise are not raised because. as Wolpe (1970) argues. sociologists
who adopt this approach simply take these as given and, as a consequence,
race relations are removed from both the economic and political structural
context and treated as an area suigenen’s(p. 156). By seeing race prejudice as
the basis for the differential incorporation of particular groups, "there is excluded
from the analysis discrimination that is either economically motivated, or arises
in or through the operation of the economic system. or that is a consequence of
a particular distribution of power, or in any event, is not caused by race prejudice"
(Wolpe, 1970. p. 162). The net result of not accounting for race prejudice in
structural terms means that the bulk of the writing on race in South Africa

remains at a descriptive level (Wolpe. 1970, p. 175).

 

7

In attempting to account for the phenomenon of continuing ethnic group
solidarity, van den Berghe (1 978) turns to sociobiology. This approach assumes
that conflict between ethnic or racial groups is based on primordial sentiments,
which, In turn, rest on the genetic tendency, derived from the kinship process, for
such groups to practice ”in-group amity/out-group enmity.“

Van den Berghe's argument unfolds in the following way: ethnic relations
are based on human nature, and human nature is to some extent aggressive and
violent (Scott, 1990, p. 153). According to Reynolds (1980), this biological basis
is viewed as 'some innate primordial tendency based on our evolved nature to
resort to aggression and violence, territoriality, etc, in order to achieve our ends"
(p. 310). For van den Berghe (1978), ethnic and race relations are "extensions
of the idiom of kinship. Ethnic and race sentiments are extended and attenuated
forms of kin selection” (p. 403).

At a general level, the primordial approach has been critiqued for not
addressing the issue of why ethnic identity can, and indeed often does, change
or fluctuate in its intensity, as well as being differentially distributed at a given
moment of time throughout a single group (Scott, 1990, p. 149).

In a sustained critique of the sociobiological approach to ethnic and race
relations. Reynolds (1980) argues that the approach ignores the fact that rather
than being a captive of his genes, man is capable of constructing the social and
physical 'reality" around him (p. 313). Developing this critique, Scott (1990)
points out that if the conscious "decisions" of individuals are more important than

their genes in determining how they relate to members of ethnic and racial

 

8
groups, then it should follow that instead of being somehow biologically fixed,
these decisions are flexible (p. 156). They are open to influence by changing
social, economic, and political circumstances.

The van den Berghe approach has limited explanatory value in the
understanding of ethnic collective violence in South Africa. The 1949 riots, for
example, would be viewed simply as a case of in-group enmity based on
primordial sentiments. These, in turn, rest on the genetic tendency derived from
the kinship process. However, competition over scarce resources might arouse
“in-group amity/out-group enmity" without anything at all being "primordial" in
these decisions. Such decisions, especially in a biological sense, are
circumstances outside the ambit of van den Berghe's approach. His
interpretation of the 1949 riots would, in all probability, parallel the explanation
of the official Commission of Enquiry, which saw the riots as a violent instance
of inherent racial conflict.

Van den Berghe’s approach of treating racial groups as internally
homogeneous and undifferentiated, and of assuming that race operates
autonomously, unaffected by other social processes, to produce social
inequalities (Wolpe, 1988, pp. 12-13), places limits on its explanatory value for
understanding the contemporary violence in Natal, for example. Here, Zulus
have attacked Zulus. Hindson and Morris (1992) have argued persuasively that
while ideological differences clearly play an important part in the conflict, such
conflict must be placed in the context of the class differentiation within the urban

African population. The violence has seen African residents of poverty-stricken

 

9

shantylowns embarking upon crude booty-gathering raids on adjacent
established African townships. By positing a race reductionist theory, van den
Berghe 'insulate[s] from enquiry conditions and processes which may be
pertinent to the cohesiveness and fragmentation of racial groups" (Wolpe, 1988,
p. 13). Thus, he cannot even begin to consider class differentiation within the
urban African population as a factor in contemporary violence in Natal.

Marxists writing on South Africa have tended to replace the race
reductionism ofthe pluralist school with an economic reductionism. This position
holds that classes defined at the level of relations of production somehow
naturally and inevitably engage in appropriate forms of class action (Bonner &
Lambert, 1987, p. 341). As Wolpe (1988) points out, class is not merely
conceptualized as an economic relation of production. It is also assumed that
the economic relation immediately and directly defines the interests of the class
entities which are constituted. No space is allowed for the contribution of
noneconomic conditions to the formation of class interests (pp. 14-15). When
sections of the working class coalesce around ethnic labels and turn on each
other, for example Indian and African workers, this approach has limited
explanatory value. The state is blamed for fomenting division, or divisions are
blamed on treacherous leadership (usuallythe villainous petit-bourgeoisie) or are
said to be an example of false consciousness.

The pluralist school played an important role in alerting social scientists
to the continuing salience of race and ethnicity as social identities. However.

instead of seeing these social markers as one identity resource among many

 

10
social identities, they saw it as the only resource. Similarly, Marxists saw class
as the prime determination of social change. Both schools would have done well
to heed the words of Ekekwe (cited in Shaw, 1986), who argues that

there exists a certain dialectic between ethnicity and class that has to be

appreciated in the search to understand politics in many post-colonial

societies; the danger for the analyst is to ignore this dialectic and to deny
eitherthe phenomenon of ethnicity orthat of class formation and struggle.

(p. 587)

The neglect of the conditions that intensify ethnic divisions in South
African social science is matched by the absence of noteworthy work on South
African collective violence. The work of Clark McPhail, James Rule, Charles
Tilly, and Turner and Killian has, as yet, not had an impact on research into
- collective violence in South Africa.

There have been numerous studies of the 1949 riots and to a lesser
extent of the 1985 violence. Meer (1969, 1989) has studied both the 1949 and
1985 riots. Although she presents the studies separately, her conclusions are
starkly similar. For Meer (1969), the 1949 riots were part of a white vendetta
against Indians, manipulating African frustrations for this purpose (p. 36). In
explaining the 1985 Inanda violence, Meer presents a theory of conspiracy:

Inanda has been earmarked for "release" to Africans in terms of the 1936

Land Act, but . . . the Government [has not] enough money to buy off

privately owned land. How better to short-circuit the whole process than

. . . through a racial attack? (p. 36)

In critiquing conspiracy theories of urban violence, Lupsha (1969) argues
that even ifthe theory contains a seed of truth, "one still has difficulty explaining

the obvious mass support given riots without admitting that some more

fundamental basis of unrest exists. For if people were content, the best

 

1 1
organized conspiracy should fail for lack of support" (p. 279). Meer does not
explore why the 1949 and 1985 riots received widespread support from the
African populace, and ends up characterizing the African participants in the 1949
riots as ”disembodied abstract things“ (Webster, 1978, p. 22). Similarly, Meer
held that participants in the 1985 riots were mobs of criminals.

Black extra-parliamentary political organizations also tended to blame the
state for the violence. The Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM), for
example, accused the National Party of embarking "on a policy of inciting the
Africans, and calling for an open pogrom on the Indians. They enrolled hooligans
and other such elements for the purpose of burning, looting and raping, under the
leadership of European thugs, and with the police conspicuous bytheir absence"
(NEUM pamphlet, 1952, p. 31).

State-funded studies, on the other hand, have explained riots as a violent
Instance of inherent racial conflict. The official commission of enquiry into the
1949 riots argued that

the zulu is by tradition a warrior. The veneer of civilization which has

come to him during his urban existence is but a thin covering. When this

breaks under the stress of emotion-especially the emotion of a mob—he
again becomes one of the braves of Chaka. . . . The Native is hostile to

stgpngers because they are different. (Riot Commission Report, 1949, p.

The liberal white press saw the participants in the 1949 riots as a mob of
savages motivated by some primeval instinct to violence. Thus, the Natal
Witness editorial of 20 January 1949 commented:

Recent events in Durban . . . have given us a taste of the Natives'

penchant for violence. Octogenarians who remember lsandhlwana will
have been neither shocked nor surprised at the primitive fury of the

 

12

rioters. They are aware of the smouldering passion inhibiting the Zulu
soul which the veneer of civilization has barely dampened.

This argument begs the question as to why Indians and not whites were
attacked and why the riots occurred in a particular period. There is a
fundamental contradiction in the commission's explanation of the riots. On the
one hand, it argues that racial riots are inevitable in a context where different
racial groups are in close proximity since they are inherently antagonistic. On the
other, it argues that the riots were an example of mob mentality, the work of
"Native loafers,“ 'Tsotse Boys," or the "l.W.W.," that is, the “I won’t works."

Building on the initial insights of Webster (1978), Edwards and Nuttall
(1990) have provided the most sophisticated analysis to date of the 1949 riots.
Their argument is premised on the race-based and differential incorporation of
groups into the hierarchy of the city—with whites at the top, Indians in the middle,
and Africans at the bottom. This, they contend, laid the basis of competitive and
antagonistic relationships between Africans and Indians at the level of
employment, housing, and trade. According to Edwards and Nuttall, Indians
came to be seen as a barrier to the upward mobility of the broad spectrum of the
African community, ranging from workers to the aspirant African middle class.
Their approach influenced my own analysis of the riots. However, their analysis
remains limited in the absence of any attempt to use existing social science
knowledge on ethnic collective behavior and riots. Edwards and Nuttall, for
example, see only the instrumental ends of violence. They argue that "[t]he
rioters had won their own victory: they had dramatically defied the authorities;

they had looted shops and homes; and through popular force had driven Indian

 

1 3
residents from the shantylowns and neighboring districts" (p. 28). Yet there were
clearly consummatory aspects to the violence. Note the District Commandant
of Police describing events in Cato Manor: "While the men were clubbed to
death, Indian women and young girls were raped by the infuriated Natives"
(Report of the Commission, 1949, p. 5).

Rather than seeing the riots as consummatory or instrumental, rational QE
irrational, as Edwards and Nuttall appear to have done, a more useful approach
is to explore the changing balance over time between what one may call the
expressive and the instrumental aspects of different types of disorders.

Edwards and Nuttall also tend to ignore broader national political
developments such as the crisis of the policy of segregation. It will be argued
that the breakdown in the policy of segregation and the failure of the ruling United
Party to develop an alternative policy is crucial in understanding the increase in
violent urban conflicts in the second half of the 19403.

Sitas (1986) and especially Hughes (1987) provide an in—depth analysis
of the tensions that underlay the social relations between Indians and Africans
in Inanda. Hughes traces the history of settlement of Africans and Indians in
Inanda and the emerging divisions between the two groupings. Hughes also
painstakingly sets out the deteriorating socioeconomic conditions African people
in Inanda had to labor under in the 19803. This approach was useful for my own
analysis.

Building on the socioeconomic conditions of Africans, Hughes (1987)

argues that "Iocal people experiencing ever-increasing degrees of poverty and

 

14
deprivation" were a central catalyst for the violence (p. 353). While explicating
the material considerations, Hughes neglects the nonmaterial factors such as
culture, ethnicity, ideology, and individual or group psychologies which act to
reinforce and reinterpret particular aspects of this material environment. These
nonmaterial elements act as windows through which the particular actors
concerned view the world and their place within it (Byerley, 1992, p. 3).

A3 Byerley (1992) reminds us,

While an analysis of the prevailing material and political conditions should

form the basis for any serious analysis of contemporary violence in South

Africa this precondition should not be substituted for the analysis itself.

Central to such an analysis is the question of how identities and alliances

are constructed in particular localities and the role of ethnicity (and indeed

other lines of social differentiation) in this construction. (p. 3)

What Hughes (1987) argues is that the reason Africans singled out Indian
examples should be seen as the result of the way in which state policies have
manipulated racial divisions over a long period, but more thoroughly so in the five
years preceding the violence (p. 353). Ethnic mobilization cannot be seen simply
as something foisted upon people by the state. The possible impulses from
below emanating from the lived reality as experienced by the actors need to be
researched. They cannot simply be discounted.

A large part of Hughes’s problem is that she falls to recognize that riots
are complex and differentiated phenomena. By approaching the riot as a
monolithic phenomenon, Hughes failsto distinguish between the different phases
of the riot and the differing intentions of groupings. Hughes (1987) tells us that

Meer's account of events in Inanda should be treated as a useful "source book

rather than a sustained analysis" (p. 332). Her own neglect of an engagement

 

15
with theories of civil violence and ethnic mobilization results in Hughes not faring
much better than Meer. In fact, despite protestations to the contrary, Hughes,
like Meer, sees the state as a manipulator of the Africans’ attack on Indians.

However, none of these studies has attempted to address the following
questions in any systematic way:

1. What was the level of participation in the riots?

2. Who were the participants?

3. Were the riots spontaneous or planned, and if spontaneous, did
certain groups subsequently provide the riots with leadership and organization?

4. Was the violence anti-Indian, or were they conveniently available
targets symbolizing white domination in general?

5. Was the riot an irrational outburst directed against all authority or
a purposeful anti-apartheid struggle?

6. Were there any norms operating among the rioters?

7. Were specific targets selected and bounds to action recognized?

It is only by explicating the prevailing socioeconomic conditions and
addressing the above questions that one can move to an explanation of what the
riots were all about.

This is not a general study of the political economy of Indian/African
relations. It is nevertheless located within such a context and draws upon
relevant aspects of this relationship in the two selected periods. The area of
sociology in which it fits and to which it aims to contribute is the study of

collective violence. The study uses various models of collective violence and

 

 

16
concepts related to this area as its primary conceptual and theoretical
underpinning. The adequacy of this underpinning for explaining the two South
African riots will be assessed. The following section reviews the existing
literature on collective violence, with the aim of laying out my own conceptual

framework.

1.3 WWW

Whether the negative attitude against crowds originated in the "rational"

defense of one’s position, or in the "irrational" fear of the rising masses,

or in both, is a matter of interpretation owing to one's perspective. We
can take it for granted that in any threatened establishment there is both.

(Graumann, 1986, p. 222)

The passage cited above effectively summarizes the various perspectives
that have been taken in the literature on "the crowd." On one hand there are
those who see the crowd as irrational. impulsive, and barbaric, while on the other
there are those who see the crowd as comprising essentially normal people
responding in a violent way against those they see as responsible in some way
for their grievances. The first section provides a broad overview of the
perspectives ofthe irrationalist and collective rational approach. The second part

focuses on theories that gained currency in the aftermath of the American urban

riots of the 19603.

1.3.1 IheJrratignalists
The second half of the nineteenth century witnessed in Europe what many
intellectuals saw as the imminent destruction of society. Rather than the march

to heightened civilization, it was crime, moral degeneration, the disruption of

 

17
urban life, and the rise of left-wing revolutionaries that were seen as the order of
the day. For many conservative and moderate intellectuals, civilization itself was
under threat.

Early theorists of the crowd (for example, Freud, 1921; Le Bon, 1895/
1960; McDougal, 1927; Tarde. 1910) considered that persons became
deindividualized when they became part of a crowd; that is, they experienced a
loss of rational control. Further to this, they argued that the person in the crowd
underwent a regression to the “primitive“ or “savage," and this resulted in the
individual becoming no more than an “animal acting by instinct" or, in the case
of Freud, unconscious impulses.

What triggers this situation? For Le Bon (1895/1960), there is a collective
excitement produced by crowds. Faced with this situation, people quickly lose
the critical reasoning faculties characteristic of day-to—day life. In close proximity
to each other, people are more prone to the machinations of mob leaders.
Stimulated bythe crowd "mentality,” individuals regress to more “primitive" types
of reaction. Note Le Bon here:

Isolated, a person may be a cultivated individual; in a crowd he is a

barbarian—that is a creature acting by instinct. He possesses the

spontaneity, the violence, the ferocity, and also the enthusiasm and

heroism of primitive beings. (p. 12)

It is the physical proximity of others that triggers crowd action. Rationality is
abandoned, and people can be influenced willy-nilly.

Freud. by contrast, did not use this type of emotionalism when discussing
crowds. He referred rather to the unconscious nature of "man“ and how this

surfaced in crowd situations. A3 Rey (1986) argues, crowd phenomena were,

 

18
for Freud, “more or less similar, but as it were millage, to phenomena that, in
the field of individual psychology, are hard to discuss because they are more
inaccessible, better concealed by mechanisms of defense and resistance" (p.
55).

Both Le Bon and Freud considered the crowd to be under some form of
mass hypnosis, but whereas Le Bon leaves this untheorized. Freud proposed
that there exist two types of bonds in crowds. These bonds, he argued, exist on
two planes, the one horizontal (between members of the crowd) and the other
vertical (between the crowd and "the leader"). Freud further considered the
horizontal bond to be a consequence of the vertical bond. Thus, crowd solidarity
was a direct result of the identification of individuals in the crowd with a "leader”
or "leading idea," and this identification led to the formation of the horizontal
bond.

Le Bon, Tarde, and McDougal have been criticized for their pseudo-
3cientific approach to crowd studies. Appelbaum and McGuire (1986) draw
attention to their "deliberate disqualification of the actions ofthe crowd, such that
. . . crowds are seen as being criminal by nature, and are described as an 'evil
force, a terrible serpent whose segments are composed of subjugated beaten
down men" (T arde, 1893; cited in Appelbaum & McGuire, 1986, p. 32).

McPhall (1991) has shown how Le Bon’s ideas were carried to and spread
in the United States by the writings and lectures of Robert E. Park at the

University of Chicago from 1916 until 1933 (pp. 5-9). The following quotation

 

 

19
from one of Park's works just before his retirement indicates his closeness to the
ideas of Le Bon.

The general characteristics of crowds have been well explored and may

be rapidly summarized. . . . Social and personal distinction disappear.

. . . Only those attitudes, passions and sentiments which are the common

heritage of mankind remain. With the evolution of what Le Bon calls "the

crowd consciousness“ there is a corresponding loss of personality by the
individual; the individual tends to act impersonally and to feel something

Iessthan the ordinary responsibility for his actions. (Park; cited in McPhail,

1991, p. 8)

The Le Bon-Park perspective of human beings transformed by the crowd
wastaken over and popularized by Herbert George Blumer. Crowds that engage
in collective behavior, according to Blumer (cited in McPhail, 1991), are "queer,
vehement and surprising . . . strange, forbidding and sometimes atrocious" (p.
13). For Blumer (cited in McPhail, 1991), crowd members are vulnerable to
whatever suggestions complement their surging common impulses and
dispositions to act because they lose the faculties of interpretation and self-
consciousness and get caught up in the circular reaction of collective excitement
and social contagion (p. 13).

The position of Le Bon, Park, and Blumer that for masses of people to act
in common or in concert, they have to lose their individual consciousness and
rationality has been found to be without logical or empirical foundation. McPhaiI
(1991) points to a substantial body of evidence that shows, rather than the loss
of critical thought and self-control during widespread disruption of routine

behaviors and social relationships. human beings “remain in control oftheir wits

and their behaviors. . . . It is characteristic of such problematic situations that

 

20
individuals' critical thinking and purposive control of behavior are enhanced

rather than diminished" (p. 14).

1.3.2 IheEmemenLNonnlzlonthesis

Social psychologist, Muzafer Sherif (cited in McPhail, 1991), argued that
while individuals were not transformed by the crowd, the presence and actions
of other individuals could be of consequence for how any one individual
perceives and acts in a situation. For Sherif, social interaction was of
consequence for the development of norms in ad hoc social situations including
the crowd, and that those emergent norms became the standards in terms of
which participants perceived those situations, organized. and controlled their
behavior (pp. 61-62).

Turner and Killian (cited in McPhail, 1991) built on the seminal insights of
Sherif to develop their emergent norm hypothesis. They define collective
behavior as

those forms of social behavior in which usual conventions cease to guide

social action and people collectively transcend, bypass. or subvert

established institutional patterns and structures. . . . Collective behavior

refers to the actions of collectivities, not to a type of individual behavior.

(9- 72)

In addressing the question of what brings people together, Turner and
Killian (cited in McPhail, 1991) propose the following:

How do people come together to form collectivities? . . . [We] shall stress

the combined effect of (1) a condition or event that is sufficiently outside

the range of "ordinary" happenings that people turn to their fellow human

beings for help and support in interpreting and responding to the situation,

and (2) the availability of pre-existing social groupings through which
intercommunication can be initiated fairly easily. (p. 73)

 

21

The central concept in Turner and Killian's (cited in McPhail, 1991 ) theory
of collective behavior is the emergent norms.

We propose that collective behavior takes place under the go vemance of

emergent norms. Some shared redefinition of right and wrong in a

situation supplies thejustification and coordinates the action in collective

behavior. (p. 82)

McPhail (1991) has provided a comprehensive critique of the work of
Turner and Killian, and it is unnecessary to repeat his work. However, two critical
issues need to be addressed.

A central problem for Turner and Killian is that there is little agreement on
what constitutes a norm. Norms have been utilized to refer to modal patterns of
behavior and to prescriptions (or proscriptions) for behavior. Often they refer to
both at the same time. Blake and Davis (cited in McPhail, 1991) have pointed
to the problems of using norms as sociological explanations:

The difficulty of proving the existence of the norm is great. A3 a

consequence, there is a tendency to take regularities in behavior as

evidence of the norm. When this is done, to explain the behavior in terms

of the norm is a redundancy. (p. 948)

Turner and Killian have not escaped the problems associated with norms.
McPhail (1991) points out that, especially in their earlier work, they inferred the
presence and operation of the norm from the modal behavior it was supposed to
explain (p. 98). This was tautological.

McPhail (1991) also points out that their theory provides no working
definition of the collective behavior to which their theory is addressed (p. 99).

Even the most elementary criteria for (a) recognizing a collectivity when we see

one; orfor (b) judging when collective, coordinated, or cooperative behavior has

 

22
occurred within or by a collectivity; or for (0) identifying recurring elementary
forms of collective behavior are not provided.
In short, there are no recipes or guidelines here for the field-worker who
wants to attempt to identify, observe, and describe collective action, let

alone forthe researcher who wants to test Turner and Killian's hypotheses
about the sources of collective action. (pp. 100-101)

1.3.3 Woman

Another group of writers on the crowd—most notably Rude (1 1959, 1981),
Cobb(1970, 1975), Hobsbawm (1971, 1972), Thompson (1963, 1971), and Tilly
(1978)-by contrast, emphasize the crowd’s behavior as a response to their
subjugated position rather than in terms of the influence of mass hypnosis. They
take issue with the supposed deviant nature of the crowd and argue that
legitimate grievances lay behind and informed crowd behavior. Hobsbawm
(1971 ), for example, argues that the "historical mob did not merely riot as protest,
but because it expected to achieve something by its riots" (p. 111).

Similarly, Lefebvre (cited in Graumann & Moscovici, 1986) has contested
the irrationality of the crowd, and argued that

It is a most unconsidered view that sees such excesses as the outcome

of ”collective madness“ or "a delinquent crowd." In such cases a

revolutionary crowd is not unconscious and does not see itself as guilty;

it is convinced that it is inflicting a just and deliberate punishment. (p. 9)

Whereas Le Bon, Tarde, and Freud concentrated on the transformation
of the individual in crowd situations, the collective rationalists have stressed the
socialmmnses of crowd violence. By and large they have analyzed crowd
phenomena in terms of the composition of the crowd, the nature of the targets

the crowd attacked, the historical context of the time, and the specific "spark" that

 

23
preceded the onset of crowd violence. Because oftheir concentration on Europe
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the historical context tended to be
one of urbanization of the peasantry, collapse of the nobility, rise of the
bourgeoisie, decline of the clergy, and the emergence of a laboring class.

A leading figure in this approach is Charles Tilly. Tilly's early work in the
mid-19603 confronted and attempted to debunk the position that violence
resulted in “breakdowns in established moral solidarities" (Rule, 1988, p. 173).

By the mid-19703, "Tilly sought to systematise his treatment of collective
action within the polity“ (Rule, 1988, p. 178). The seminal work concretizing
these efforts is from MobilizationJLBexolution (1978). In this work Tilly
distinguishes between four bases of collective action.

1. The mutation of the group or groups involved. Protest
movements are organized in many ways, varying from spontaneous formation
of crowds to tightly disciplined revolutionary groups. The movement Castro led,
for example, began as a small guerrilla band.

2. Mobilization. This involves the ways in which a group acquires
control over sufficient resources to make collective action possible. Such
resources may include supplies of material goods, political support, orweaponry.
Castro was able to acquire material and moral support from a sympathetic
peasantry, together with many townspeople.

3. The commonjnterests of those engaging in collective action, what
they see as the gains and losses likely to be achieved by their policies or tactics.

Some common interests always underlie mobilization to collective action. Castro

 

24
managed to weld together a broad coalition of support because many people
had, or thought they had, a common interest in removing the existing
government.

4. Opportunity. Obviously, chance events may occur that provide
opportunities to pursue revolutionary aims. Many forms of collective action,
including revolution, are greatly influenced by such incidental happenings. There
was no inevitability to Castro's success, which depended on a number of
contingent factors--in the early stages, Castro's "invasion" was almost a
complete fiasco. If he had been one of the 70 captured or killed, would there
have been a revolution?

Collective action itself can simply be defined as people acting together in
pursuit of mteLestsjheLshare—for example, gathering to demonstrate in support
of their cause. There may be various levels of activism among those who
engage in such behavior, some being intensely involved, others lending more
passive or irregular support. Effective collective action, such as that which
culminates in revolution, usually moves from (a) organization, to (b) mobilization,
to (c) the perceiving of shared interests, and finally to (d) the occurrence of
concrete opportunities to act effectively (Tilly, 1978, pp. 7-10).

For Le Bon, political actors are the victims of manipulation. For Tilly,
collective action sees people acting together in pursuit of their interests. Action
is purposeful and calculated. Note Tilly (1978) here:

1. Collective action coSts something.

2. All contenders count costs.
3. Collective action brings benefits, in the form of collective goods.

 

25

4. Contenders continuously weigh expected costs against expected
benefits.
5. Both costs and benefits are uncertain because

(a) contenders have imperfect information about the current
state of the polity
(b) all parties engage in strategic interaction. (p. 99)

The approach adopted in this dissertation avoids viewing crowds as
rational or irrational. Rather, I follow Dunning, Murphy, Newburn, and
Waddington (1987), who suggest that the terms "rational" and "irrational" are
misleading and argue that ”it might be more fruitful to see crowds not as 'rational’
or ’irrational,’ but rather to explore the changing balance over time between what
one might call the ’expressive' and the ’instrumental' aspects of different types
of disorders” (p. 24), "expressive" violence being the cathartic release of
aggression, and “instrumental” violence being protest to redress grievances.

Rule (1988) makes a similar point when he argues that

there is much to suggest that crowd action is not always strictly

purposeful, if by this we mean oriented only to instrumental ends. Some

militant crowd action is clearly consummatory rather than instrumental,
and such action often includes the sorts of hair-raising sadistic and
destructive acts that inspired the anxiety-ridden visions of the
irrationalists. Such actions appear to be ends in themselves, rather than
means to some longer-term end. (p. 242)
1.3.4 Comoositionjndfiauses

In the discussion that now follows, the focus moves on to the question of
who participates in collective violence, but with an eye towards using this to
explain why violence actually occurs.

Proponents of the irrationalist school, Sighele and Le Bon, argue that it is

those at the very bottom of the social heap who participate in riots. “Criminals,

 

26

madmen, the offspring of madmen, alcoholics, the slime of society, deprived of
all moral sense, given over to crime-these compose the greater part of the
revolutionaries,” wrote Sighele (1892, p. 104). This "scum of the earth" theory
of participation in violent events has been disputed by Tilly (1978) and his
collaborators. They have argued that popular protest, both violent and othenivise,
' is a normal outgrowth of other popular collective action, and that participants are
apt to be typical of the social groups whose interests the protests represent.

Analysts of the American riots of the 1960s also pointed to certain groups
as the cause of the violence. Four theories gained some currency: the
criminality (riff-raft) theory, the under or lower class theory, the recent migrant
theory, and the teenage rebellion (youth) theory.

1.3.4.1 Ibegnmlnammfliamjhm. Three notions underpin the riff-
raff theory:

1. only a small fraction of the black population (2% or 3% of the urban
ghetto population) actively participated in the riots;

2. the rioters, far from being representatives of the black community,
were mainly the "riff-raff," the young, unattached, unskilled, unemployed,
uprooted. criminal (petty thieves. hustlers), and outside agitators; and

3. the ovemhelming majority of the black population (the law-abiding
and respectable 97% or 98% who did notjoin the rioting) totally opposed the riots
(Fogelson, 1971, p. 27).

While the riff-raft certainly take part in urban violence, evidence gathered

on the 1960 riots indicates that the bulk of the participants in the riots cut across

 

27
all class lines in the black community and the bulk of the rioters were the mature,
employed, better educated, and more aware members of the riot community
(Kerner, 1968, pp. 128-133).

Sears and McConahey (1973) contend that the Watts rioters were
relatively well educated and politically sophisticated and that they held positive
black self-images, and more freely criticized whites (p. 42). Oberschall (1968),
in his study of the Los Angeles riot of 1965, found that the riot drew participants
from all social strata within the predominantly lower—class Negro area in which
itth place. While the lawless and rootless minority from the area were active,
the riot could not be attributed to them, according to Oberschall. He argues that

the riot is best seen as a large scale collective action, with a wide,

representative base in the lower-class Negro communities, which,
however much it gained the sympathy of the more economically well-off

Negroes, remained a violent, lower-class outburst throughout. If there

were numerous jobless among the participants and many youths from

families with problems, it is precisely because such cases abound in the

neighborhoods in which the riot occurred. (p. 329)

In looking at the number of participants, the Los Angeles Riot Study team
found that 15% of the black adult population participated at some point during the
rioting at one level or another (Greenburg, 1971, p. 280). The National Advisory
Commission on Civil Disorders found that

Atotal of 11.2 percent of Detroit's blacks over fifteen years of age and a

remarkably high 43.4 percent of Newark’s blacks between fifteen and

thirty-five years of age are reported by the Survey Research Center to

have participated in these two cities’ disorders. (Green burg, 1971 , p. 280)

1.3.4.2 WM. According to this view, riots are

basically the products of "culture shock." The riots, according to this view, are

rooted in the inability of recent migrants to adjust to the stress and complexity of

 

28
urban ghetto living. It is argued that the failure to adapt, to acculturate to the
norms and mores of the city, results in alienation from, and hostility towards. the
economic and political system (Lupsha, 1969. p. 280).

Recent analyses, as well as historical data, indicate that the facts do not
support the migrant assumption. According to Lupsha (1969), "it appears that
this ’buck—passing' notion is not only incorrect, but that the counter-hypothesis—
that recent migrants act as a dampener to riots--may have some merit" (p. 280).
Aggregate analysis of 76 pairs of riot cities and similar nonriot cities for the period
1959 through 1963 found, for example, that the recent migrant thesis (defined as
rapid expansion of the black population) did not hold (Lieberman 8 Silverman,
1965). These researchers found that black in-migration tended to be greater in
the nonriot control city. The data from the Kemer Commission (1968), which
closely examined the socialization and residence patterns in Detroit and Newark,
found that 74.4% of the rioters in these cities also grew up there (p. 130).
Available data indicate that the recent migrant theory has little usefulness in
explaining violence.

1.3.4.3 Ihejeenagerebelflommnmmeom. This position argues that
riots are the result of the overflow of the pent-up frustration and youthful
exuberance of teenagers in the densely populated ghettos. According to
Banfield (1968), riots are an “outbreak of animal—usually young, male animal—
spirits. Young men are naturally restless, in search of excitement, thrills, 'action'“

(p. 187).

 

29

While youth make up most of the active members of rioters, Sears and
McConahay (1973, p. 26) point out, the data indicate that every age group is
represented in these outbursts. Oberschall (1968) notes that in the Los Angeles
riot of 1965,

Since 41 percent of those arrested were in the 25 to 39 age category, and

a further 17 percent 40 years old and over, it is inaccurate to describe the

rioters as mainly composed of irresponsible youth and young hoodlums.

Unlike gang incidents and other outbursts that are confined to a particular

age cohort, the Los Angeles riot drew its participants from young and old

alike. (p. 328)

Lupsha (1969) points out that, considering that the median age in the New Haven
riot area is approximately 17 years, these data suggest that the rioters were, in
the main, the older and mature elements in the community (p. 282). It would
appear, then, that more than just young men are "naturally restless" during riots
(Upton, 1984, p. 34).

1.3.4.4 Ihoundomlasslhoorx. The theory has wide acceptance among
academics rather than among public officials. The ”underclass" theory contends
that riots are basically a class phenomenon, a building up of grievances of the
hard-core poor (Upton, 1984, p. 30).

Evidence is contradictory. Fogelson and Hall (1 968) state that about 75%
of the persons participating in riots in Cincinnati, Dayton, Detroit, Grand Rapids,
Newark, New Haven, Boston, Plainfield, and Phoenix were employed (p. 58).
Oberschall (1968) found in his study among the arrested rioters that only about
10% were In the nonmanual category, and of the remaining proportion only 9.4%

were classified as skilled workers. Moreover, 22.6% of the arrested rioters were

unemployed, compared with 13.2% for the Watts labor force in November 1965,

 

30

and 10.1% for South Los Angeles. The lower-class character of riot participation
clearly emerges from these figures. Oberschall does note, though, that if there
were numerous jobless among the participants. it is precisely because such
cases abound in the neighborhoods in which the riot occurred.

1.3.4.5 Belatixeoeormation. By the mid-19603, relative deprivation had
gained major prominence in the literature offering explanation of civil violence.
This work built on the deprivation-frustration-aggression (DFA) formulation of
Miller and Dollard (1941). The theory of relative deprivation embraces two
essential concepts. First, deprivation is not absolute but rather relative; that is,
people compare themselves to some standard of reference. In sociological
research the standard of reference is usually a group or status which an
individual wishes to emulate. Second, because deprivation is relative, those who
are most deprived in an objective sense are not necessarily the ones
experiencing deprivation.

Gurr (1968) used the DFA model to explain the US. riots in the mid-
19603:

The sociological and political cliche is that "frustration” or "discontent" or

"despair“ is the root cause of rebellion. Cliche or not, the basic

relationship appears to be as fundamental to understanding civil strife as

the law of gravity is to atmospheric physics: relative deprivation . . . is a

necessary precondition for civil strife of any kind, and the more severe is

relative deprivation, the more likely and severe is strife. Underlying this

relative deprivation approach to civil strife is a frustration-aggression

mechanism, apparently a fundamental part of our psychological make-up.

When we feel thwarted in an attempt to get something we want, we are

likely to get angry, and when we get angry the most satisfying inherent
response is to strike out at the source of frustration. (pp. 52-53)

 

31

The DFA was tested in many examinations of the incidence of riots,
collective violence, and demonstrations. Spilerrnan (1970. 1976) and Snyder
(1979) found that socioeconomic and political deprivation yielded very low
correlations with the incidence of US. riots between 1963 and 1972. A variety
of measures of deprivation and frustration failed to differentiate participants from
nonparticipants in the US. urban riots (McPhail, 1971).

If relative deprivation seeks to explain a violent event, the following would
need to be established:

First, that the participants shared a single standard of justice,
appropriateness, equity, minimal acceptability, or the like. Second, that the
timing of the action ensued from the experience of the violation ofthis standard,
as registered in evidence from the individual participants. Third, that actual
participants in the violent action were distinguished from nonparticipants in the
same population by their sense of violation of the key standard (Rule, 1988, p.
223)

This is a tall order that relative deprivation theorists have failed to fulfill.
Thus, one must agree with Rule's (1988) assessment that, while the theory has
made an undoubted "contribution to understanding some forms of civil violence
. . . it falls distinctly short of the status of a viable theory" (p. 223).

1.3.4.6 WM. Following Parsons, Smelser
(1962) analyzes human action in terms of four integrative elements in society:
values, norms, mobilization into roles, and situational facilities (p. 32). Collective

behavior occurs when any of these elements is disturbed.

 

_ -5 3“.

32

Smelser adds to this framework six further determinants: structural
conduciveness, structural strain, crystallization of a generalized belief,
precipitating factors, mobilization for action, and social control. Each determinant
contributes its own effect to the overall process.

The operation of these determinants is conceived as a value added
process. Each determinant is a necessary condition for the next to operate as
a determinant in an episode of collective behavior. As the necessary conditions
accumulate, the explanation of the episode becomes more determinate.
Together the necessary conditions constitute the sufficient condition for the
episode (Smelser, 1962, p. 382).

Both sets of organizing constructs are required for a full explanation of any
particular form of collective behavior which could take many forms, for example.
panics, crazes, riots, hostile outbursts, or social movements.

Smelser’s model has a number of positive features. It states that crowd
behavior emerges out of wider social conditions under strain and that crowds are
directed towards social change rather than merely "running amok." It attempts
to account for a range of different forms of collective behavior, thus moving away
from a picture of crowds as merely destructive. Rule (1988) points out that
Smelser’s model makes an important heuristic contribution in informing us that
for any instance of collective behavior to occur—or indeed, for any other behavior
—a variety of necessary conditions must be fulfilled. The fact that given
circumstances have produced innovative action in the past has no bearing on the

future if new actors view the same circumstances from different perspectives.

 

33
This way of thinking is an important corrective to the notion that collective
behavior or any other social phenomenon results from a single ”cause“ that, once
specified, leaves it firmly and permanently accounted for (p. 163).

However, Smelser has also been subjected to criticism. Chief among
these are the following:

1. The theory is too broad and abstract, lacking in empirical criteria
for specifying links between the real world and theory.

2. It is not clear that all six determinant factors are always necessary
for crowd action to occur. Some studies of actual crowd events have not found
all six factors operative.

3. The notion of structural strain is too loose and vague. It is unclear
precisely what constitutes strain. and whether it is due to objective conditions or
subjective perceptions of conditions.

4. Similarly, the notion of “generalized belief“ is rather too vague. For
example, Milgram and Joch (1969) claim that crowd members may hold diverse
and contradictory beliefs. In addition, Smelser holds that this belief should be
dominant among crowd members. Berk (1974) asks how dominant is dominant?
Is it the only belief, or the only one in common, or the most important one in that
sfiuaflon?

5. The theory Is not clear on what generates the generalized belief or

how individuals came to share this viewpoint.

34
1.3.5 WW

Ethnic competition and conflict do not inevitably lead to violence. In this
section we shall look at some of the circumstances under which ethnic
competition and conflict do assume violent forms.

The effects of racial and ethnic cleavages on social organization have
been largely neglected by social scientists. They regarded race and ethnicity as
traditional forms that would evaporate as society underwent modernization. Marx
and Engels believed racial and ethnic group cleavages would be subsumed in
the modern order by larger identities based on class membership. Similarly,
dichotomies such as Durkheim’s mechanical and organic solidarity saw a
movement from ascriptive group cleavages to affiliations based on rational
principles of mutual interest. Despite these optimistic projections, ascriptive
group cleavages remain an integral aspect of modern societies. For example,
in the United States, ethnic identification rivals class as a predictor of political
participation (Giles 8 Evans, 1986, pp. 469-470).

In South Afrim the ongoing political violence has shown that in South
Africa’s industrial heartland, ethnic identities continue to persist. Defying the
pronouncements and predictions of Marxist and modernization theorists, a
significant section of the African working class in the Transvaal has organized
itself into ethnically based bands (the 'Zulus"). armed itself with ”cultural
weapons,“ and “taken on the Xhosas.“

Young (1986) argues that ”the two most important patterns of cleavage

in Third World states are social class and cultural pluralism. not necessarily in

35
that order“ (p. 119). In looking at the class-ethnicity relationship, it is important
to view these macrovariables as interrelated but analytically distinct.

Bienen (cited in Shaw, 1986) argues that class and ethnicity need to "be
' understood situationally, that is, in specific social, political, economic and spatial
contexts” (p. 587). Similarly, Young (1986) holds that

the impact of communal cleavages depends on situational factors, which

articulate potential consciousness into activated group solidarity when a

specific context is perceived as threatening group interests. . . . Collective

self-awareness is also indispensable to meaningful class political action.

. . . The mere existence of rural small holders, an urban working force, or

stratification by occupation and income does not in and of itself create

politics of social class. (p. 121)

No a priori assertions can be made about class/ethnicity interaction as it takes
different forms in different contexts.

One way of conceptualizing the persistence of racial and ethnic group
cleavages in modern societies is to emphasize the psychological aspects of
prejudice. This approach has mainly viewed discrimination as only serving the
need for ridding oneself of hostility, guilt, and fear. Although such an approach
explains individual instances of racial prejudice, it is less suited to explain
widespread organizational and systematic patterns of racial hostilities (Giles &
Evans, 1986. p. 470).

An alternative way of conceptualizing the persistence of racial and ethnic
cleavages that appears better suited to explain organizational and systematic
patterns of prejudice and discrimination is offered by the competitive ethnicity

approach. This model conceptualizes racial and ethnic groups not as vestiges

of premodem society but rather as vehicles for the pursuit of interest in modern

36
pluralist societies. The competition model of ethnic mobilization argues that
ethnic mobilization is a consequence of the competition between groups for
resources.

Olzak and Nagel (1986) argue that "modernisation increases levels of
competition for jobs, housing and other valued resources among ethnic groups"
and that “ethnic conflict and social movements based on ethnic [rather than
some other] boundaries occur when ethnic compefition increases” (p. 2; italics
in original).

This view holds that, with modernization, the assignments of individuals
to occupations and the distribution of societal rewards in general tend to be made
increasingly on the basis of rational and achieved criteria that cross-cut ethnic
boundaries. It does not follow that ethnic distinctions become irrelevant,
however. The crucial element of such a situation is that members of different
groups find themselves increasingly in a position to compete for the same
occupations and the same rewards. The competitive tensions are manifested by
a heightening of solidarity within the groups involved (Nielsen, 1985, p. 134).
The competition model holds that it is when the cultural division of labor breaks
down, thus opening the way for intergroup competition, that ethnic mobilization
is most likely to occur.

In a critique of the competition model, Pinard (1987) argues that it is
unidimensional and tautological.

In one of its most common forms, social conflict after all involves, by

definition, a striving for scarce goods which cannot be secured by all.

Hence to argue simply that conflict is rooted in competition is tautological.
But given that the reverse is patently not true—not all forms of competition

37

. . . lead to conflict—the basic theoretical problem is that of enunciating the
intervening conditions under which it does. (p. 771)

In a later article, Pinard, together with Bélanger, specifies two conditions
under which ethnic competition can lead to ethnic conflict:

1. Competition must be perceived as unfair.

2. Competitive relations must be relatively free from interdependence.
According to Bélanger and Pinard (1991), ethnic competition will be perceived
as unfair when it Is seen as violating accepted norms (e.g., when discriminatory
practices prevail), when it is seen as involving unjustified threats to claimed rights
and possessions (e.g., infringing on one's turf), or when the rules of the game
themselves are contested or the outcomes of competition are seen as
unbalanced (e.g., the same ethnic region wins government allocations more
often than others). The main determinants of perceptions of unfairness are
structural. Even if ethnic competition is ”objectively” fair, it is likely to be
perceived as unfair whenever it occurs within structures that generate grievances
that spoil relations between competitors. This is likely to occur whenever the
competition takes place within a larger context of ethnic inequality, subordination,
or disadvantage of a class/economic nature (pp. 448-449). Belanger and
Pinard's second necessary condition argues that the competitors' relationships
with each other must also be as purely competitive as possible or, to put it
another way, as uncomplementary as possible. If high levels of complementarity
or interdependence (or even dependence) are present, relationships are likely
to be perceived as mutually beneficial and will therefore tend to be peaceful

(although not necessarily friendly).

38

McPhail (1991) makes a similar point in relation to competition and conflict
(pp. 221-222). Competition, according to McPhail, can be defined as the
presence of two or more parties pursuing mutually exclusive objectives: one
party’s success is the other’s failure. Some competition is regulated by rules or
laws (that is, principles or systems of principles) to which competitors agree and
which more or less regulate or prevent the kinds of clashes between competitors
that would lead to dangerous levels of violence. McPhail argues that when
competition for mutually exclusive objectives is not regulated in some fashion,
hostility and conflict between competitors is probable if not inevitable. This holds
true according to McPhail for small groups and for nation states. What needs to
be emphasized is that in a context where parties perceive themselves to be
pursuing mutually exclusive goals and the rules favor one party, the potential for
conflict is heightened.

To assess the nature of competition between Indians and Africans, we will
need, first, to understand:

1. their structural location within the regional economy,

2. whether one of the groups has been privileged in any way by the
white ruling class, and

3. whether the local and national state has generated structures for
the meaningful representation of Indian and African interests.

To assess levels of interdependence, we will need to explore the social,
economic. and political spheres that Indians and Africans inhabit to evaluate the

nature and context of lndo-African interaction. This will allow us to assess

39
whether Bélanger and Pinard’s necessary conditions for ethnic conflict exist or
not.

Where there exist more than two ethnic groups which legislation. custom,
or other forms of social control have ordered in a hierarchical system of relative
privilege and advantage, if is necessary to understand why competition, conflict,
and collective violence may occur only between some and not all of them at the
same time. Under such complex, interactive circumstances, the violence which
may occur (when the conditions laid out above are satisfied) is often directed at
the middleman minority which may occupy a position of relative privilege in the

system/structure of hierarchy.

1.3.6 IhoMMdlemaannoritx

Relations between groups of different races or ethnic groups take a
number of forms. One position an ethnic group can take is that of a ”middleman
minority.“ Blalock (1967) argues that some groups come to

occupy intermediate positions owing to a competitive advantage or a high

adaptive capacity. Such minorities are often associated with special

occupational niches by virtue of a combination of circumstances, plus a

cultural heritage that has been used as an adaptive mechanism over a

prolonged period. (p. 79)

Middleman minorities have also been referred to as middleman trading
peOpIes, migrant lntermediation, marginal trading peoples, and permanent
minorities. While there have been a variety of labels to describe middleman
minorities, there is general agreement that a number of ethnic groups around the

world have occupied a similar position in the social structure. Thus, Rinder

(1958) has referred to the Armenians in Turkey. Parsis in India, and the Chinese

40
throughout the Pacific in this context (p. 9). Other social scientists have referred
to the “middleman“ role of the Japanese in the United States, the Asians of East
Africa. and so on. Becker (1956) has offered the Jews as the epitome of the
marginal trading people.

As Blalock (1967) pointed out, that which distinguished these groups is the
economic role they came to play. Unlike most ethnic minorities, they occupy an
intermediate rather than a low-status position. They are generally found in
certain occupations, mainly trade and commerce, but also as labor contractor,
rent collector, money lender, and broker. They play the role of middleman
between producer and consumer, employer and employee, owner and renter,
elite and masses (pp. 79-84).

Rinder (1958-59) argues that middleman groups arise in societies where
there is a “status gap.“ Rinder defines a status gap as “the discontinuity, the
yawning social void which occurs when superior and subordinate positions are
not bridged by continuous, intermediate degrees of status." The "status gap”
produces an economic gap because elites fear that through direct trade
relationships “their prestige, their ’face,’ their aura of superiority could be
reduced“ (p. 254).

Rinder (1958-59) points out that middleman minorities or people in the
status gap are scapegoats par excellence (p. 253). According to Rinder,
middleman minorities possess an important scapegoat feature in yisibility.

It does not matter whether these differentiating traits are cultural or

biological; whether they have been voluntarily retained because of

coercion from without; the resulting visibility is most important in
Identifying and isolating the scapegoat. (p. 257)

41

Another important characteristic that comes with life in the gap is
yuinerabillty. The role of middleman easily becomes the role of “economic
villain,“ especially at a time of economic crisis. For the “victims of adversity it is
at least some comfort to explain their misfortune by attributing it to the evil
machinations of villains rather than as a consequence of remote, complex and
hardly comprehensible forces“ (Rinder, 1958-59, p. 257).

Scapegoats, according to Rinder (1958-59), often deflect hostility away
from the superior status group. “This is the classical function of the scapegoat,
to attract and drain off in lightening-rod fashion, the hostility which might
otherwise be more accurately directed toward different targets“ (p. 258). This
deflection of hostility onto the people in the gap is facilitated by the fact that they
are more accessible. These people, unlike those of superior status, live in close
proximity to their clientele.

Bonacich (1973) argues that, given the structural location of the
middleman group, hostility from the host society is rational (p. 589). There is an
inevitable conflict of interest between buyer and seller, renter and landlord, client
and professional, to which middleman minorities, because they cluster in these
occupations, become heir. A second general rationale for hostility arises from
the solidarity of the middleman minority. Middleman groups are charged with
being clannish, alien, and unassimilable.

However, even if there is a predisposition to hostility directed against
middleman minorities, it does not automatically lead to violence. Here

Waddington, Jones, and Critcher’s (1989) notion of flashpoints is useful (p. 1).

42

They argue that in a context of economic and political deprivation, any incident
can serve as a flashpoint for the outbreak of collective violence. Similar
explanations have been invoked in American studies of the ghetto riots of the
19603, with this type of incident described as “the match which lighted the
powder keg“ (Bowen 8 Masotti, 1968). Frequently, the actual flashpoint incident
is only the latest one in a series of similar incidents, but to the extent that it
crystallizes current feelings of discontent, it comes to be regarded as the “final
straW“ (Lieberson 8 Silverman, 1965, p. 888). Such metaphors implicitly
recognize the existence of latent hostility based on a profound sense of
grievance. In a context where the necessary conditions for ethnic conflict exist,
any incident can serve as a flashpoint for the outbreak of ethnic collective
violence.

Bonacich’s (1973) model would benefit from further refinement. She
argues that sojourning is a necessary condition of the middleman form. This
condition generates particular economic and social consequences. The
economic effects include a tendency toward thrift and a concentration in certain
occupations (p. 585). The middleman minority uses its intermediate status and
economic power to invest its time, talent, and resources in choosing select
occupations, among them the independent professions, the shared
characteristics of which are lateral mobility and liquidity. To expand its worth, the
middleman minority practices personal thrift, even niggardliness, and delayed

social gratification (Wong, 1985, p. 55).

43

Most Indian South Africans did not regard themselves as sojoumers. In
fact, their primary struggle was for full rights as South Africans. Large
investments went into property, much to the chagrin of the white electorate.
Fixed property is hardly a highly liquid form of asset holding. lndentured laborers
overwhelmingly refused the free passage home at the end of indenture and
sought a permanent stake in Natal. Few took advantage of the financial
incentives offered as part of the Cape Town agreement to return to India.
Sojouming then, it is argued, is not a necessary condition of the middleman form.

Issue must also be taken with Bonacich's (1973) assertion that the “same
groups become middlemen wherever they go“ (p. 588). Wong (1985) points out
that this assertion means that the middleman minority is believed to be a group
programmed by its cultural characteristics to occupy and fulfill its role in the
society at large. In Bonacich’s argument it is not social environments that
determine the social position of those ethnic or racial groups who become
middleman minorities but some predetermined inevitability (Wong, 1985, p.56).
It is this position that leads Bonacich to see the middleman form as limited to a
very specific occupational and commercial group. Middleman minorities, we
would argue, can have much more complex stratification structures. Thus, Indian
ex-indentured laborers did not turn to trade or the professions but took up semi-
skilled and supervisory positions in industries owned mainly by whites. It was
those passenger Indians who came to South Africa of their own volition after
1875 who dominated trade. Later, many Indians turned to the “independent

professions“ to escape the legislative barriers that prevented expansion in the

44
commercial arena and upward mobility in the workplace. Middleman minorities
can exhibit a much more complex social structure than Bonacich envisages.

Wong (1985) points to the arbitrariness with which the theory has been
applied. He points to post-independence Southeast Asian countries where the
diminution of the colonialist population has meant that the Chinese today are in
a bilateral relationship with the various indigenous populations. However, there
has been no serious re-evaluation of the status of the Chinese in Southeast Asia,
and they are still cast as a middleman minority. Similarly, a succession of Asian
groups have been cast as a middleman minority in the United States without any
specification of how such a group emerges in an ethnically heterogeneous
society such as the United States.

In some post-colonial societies where whites constitute a significant settler
minority with economic and political power, a triadic group configuration persists.
In this context the middleman form can have validity. To reiterate, the
middleman minority is not used here in Bonacich’s sense of indicating a specific
occupational and commercial grouping but simply as an intermediate grouping
in the stratification system. This broadening of the middleman concept is useful
for my own analysis as it more adequately captures the location of Indian South
Africans within the economy and allows for an understanding of why broad
sectors of the African population came to see Indians as an obstacle to their
upward mobility. The concept of a middleman minority occupies an important

place in the analysis to follow.

45
1.3.7 W
[Ell . Il ill I'

Cultural pluralism continues to pervade the majority of nation-states. It is
especially significant that this is not an exclusively “Third World“ phenomenon
(although this is primarily my focus in this section). Canada, Spain, Northern
Ireland, and the unabating conflicts in Eastern Europe bear testimony to its
worldwide existence. The heady pronouncements about the “inexorable
integrative trends toward the national cores of the contemporary state system"
no longer hold sway (Young, 1986, p. 115).

When the idea of nationalism began to prevail in Asia and Africa around
the end of the nineteenth century, it was linked to an anti-imperial stance, and
later in many instances to an anti-colonial revolt. Anti-colonial struggles were
fought within the confines of territorial units structured by imperial partition, and
it was these units that were inherited by the anti-colonial forces. The post-
independence task then became one of “nation-building“ and “national
integration.“

The post-independence zeal of nation-building was matched by a
confidence that cultural pluralism would be quickly eradicated. This mood was
epitomized by Sekou Tours of Guinea, who at the dawn of independence
predicted that “in three or four years, no one will remember the tribal, ethnic or
religious rivalries which in the recent past, caused so much damage to our
country and its population“ (Young, 1986, p. 127).

“Ethnicity, however, failed to cooperate with its many would-be-pall-

bearers“ (Vail, 1989, p. 2). One of the most cited interpretations of ethnicity is

46
that it was a construct of colonial governments and was foisted on subjected
peoples to create and maintain divisions between them. This explanation was
particularly attractive to progressive social scientists and political organizations
in South Africa. They cited the South African govemment’s Bantustan policies
as an example of an attempt to “divide-and-rule.“

There are many shortcomings in this attempt to explain the persistence
of ethnic consciousness. It does not explain why, in a particular colonial state,
where the same divide-and-rule policies were employed across the territory, an
ethnic identity emerged more strongly among certain peoples than among others.
It also paints African people as “empty vessels“ who were duped by their colonial
masters into accepting an ethnic identity. Finally, it does not explain how (long
after the demise of colonialism and despite the strenuous efforts of African
governments) ethnicity still prevails, and why in some areas it is beginning to
emerge for the first time. “The clever blandishments of subtle European
administrators are clearly insufficient to explain either the origins of ethnic
consciousness or its continuing appeal today“ (Vail, 1989, p. 4).

A second explanation had its origins in the Dual Economy model of
“modemization' theory. Within this framework the work of Epstein (1958) and
Mitchell (1958) pointed to the fact that as different cultural groups left their rural
areas and Interacted with each other In urban settings, a new ethnic
consciousness emerged. It was in the urban setting that the various cultural
groups developed stereotypes of themselves and others. This process was

reinforced by employers favoring certain ethnic groups for particular types of

47
work and their deliberate use of ethnic differences to sow divisions within the
workforce. This had the effect of building competition between ethnic groups into
the hierarchically structured workforce. Thus, within this view, ethnicity was seen
to have its roots in the modern urban workplace.

Vail (1989) points out that while this explanation is valuable because it
emphasizes the notion that ethnic stereotypes mainly arose out of work situations
and in urban settings, it still cannot serve as a general explanation of ethnicity’s
origin or, especially, its persistence (p. 4). Probably, the most obvious
shortcoming of this explanation is the view that “rural Africa was preserved in
some sort of ’traditional’ pickle, antithetically opposed to ’modem’ industrial Africa
and largely untouched by the forces of change associated with capitalist
expansion and urbanization“ (Vail, 1989, p. 4). The work of Palmer and Parsons
(1977) among others has debunked notions of the existence of “two Africas"
isolated from each other. Rural areas in southern and central Africa, for
example, did not remain untouched by historical changes. In fact, Vail points out
that there is sufficient empirical evidence which demonstrates that “it is to the
rural areas that one must look for most of the intellectual content of ethnic
ideologies as they developed during the twentieth century in response to such
change“ (p. 5). This explanation also does not allow for the role of African
intellectuals in retrieving and retelling stories of the “glorious past“ which are
crucial in defining ethnic identities and ethnic ideologies.

Third, there is an interpretation of the growth of ethnicity that points to the

role of aspirant petty bourgeois groups. It is argued that with the imminent

48
demise of colonialism, petty bourgeois groups organized support along ethnic
lines to ensure the advancement of their interests in the post-independence
period. This secured the entrenchment of ethnic politics in many African
countries.

This argument contributes to explaining why some cultural groups which
had a “modemizing“ petty bourgeoisie within them are more “tribal“ than other
groups within the same country which did not possess such a class. However,
it is unable to account for ethnicity’s appeal on its own.

This is so because it goes too far in depicting ordinary people as being

credulous, blindly accepting the ethnic party from their devious batters.

It fails to explain why, today as in the colonial period, the ethnic message

should find such resonance with ordinary people. Why, in short, have

ordinary people chosen so often to support ethnic politicians rather than

national politicians? (Vail, 1989, p. 5)

Finally, there is the primordialist explanation for the origin and persistence
of ethnicity in Africa. This is a position held by Pierre van den Berghe (cf.
Chapter 1, Section 1.2 for an evaluation of his work). Its continuing attraction is
seen in two influential works on South Africa (Horowitz, 1991; Lijphart, 1988).
This interpretation places people in accordance with inevitable, largely
unselfconscious ascription: people belong to tribe X because they are born in
tribe X and are, regardless of personal choice, characterized by the cultural traits
of tribe X. Thus, one is a member of a tribe not by choice, but by destiny, and
one thus partakes of a set of ”proper“ customs (Vail, 1989, p. 6).

A number of problems have been advanced with this interpretation. For

one, this interpretation ignores the intellectual content of the ethnic message, the

fact that it can change from group to group, and its uneven attractiveness among

49

different members of the same ethnic group. Also, by emphasizing the
backward-looking, “primordial“ aspect of ethnicity, this interpretation cannot
account for the fact that the ethnic ideology has encapsulated within it a powerful
acceptance of western education and skills and a willingness to “change with the
times.“ “As an interpretation, the ’primordialist’ explanation of ethnicity, on its
own, is simply too ahistorical and non-specific to convince“ (Vail, 1989, p. 6).

If one accepts that ethnicity is “quintessentially situational and
multidimensional,“ then it becomes necessary “to accept that no one explanation
suffices to 'explain’ it wholly and in every instance“ (Vail, 1989, p. 7). This study
takes a lead from Vail in that it attempts to move the analysis of ethnicity beyond
the more or less ahistorical stance of the current dominant interpretations

towards a more specifically historical interpretation.

1.4E|"Clll'1!'|

A general shortcoming of sociological theories dealing with collective
violence is that they are most often either excessively particular in their concern
with inner-city riots or pitched at such a level of generality that the specifics of
any piece of disorderly conduct is reduced to those elements that can be
incorporated within a general theory of collective behavior. It would appear to me
that one cannot attribute causation simplistically to a single factor. These
grandiose claims have not been validated by empirical evidence. “Where not
logically flawed to the extent of unfalsifiability, most of the theories appear to fit
at least some sets of evidence. But all fall short of the rigorous requirement of

accounting for variation in civil violence whenever and wherever it occurs“ (Rule,

50
1988, p. 256). What we need to do is to accept that for civil violence “what
appears as ’the same’ effect may proceed from a variety of causes and that ’the
same’ causal influences may yield a variety of different effects in various
settings“ (Rule, 1988, p.256).

Sociological exp/anda involve a range of explanations or theories. This
does not mean that all theories are equally important. “What will appear as a key
element of causation, as a basis for satisfying theory, will depend on the
particular data under study and the interests of the analyst“ (Rule, 1988, p. 258).
It does not follow that all theories are valid “in their own terms.“ Theories of civil
violence are invalidated, for example, ifthey specify conditions as necessary for
the occurrence of violent episodes that in fact are not.

Rule (1988), building on the insights of Robert Maclver (1942) and Alan
Garfinkel (1981), proposes that a model of theory and explanation suited to the
peculiar and empirical constraints of social reality should at a minimum:

1. Identify connections—causal sequences or other durable
associations—linking empirically falsifiable properties of social data,
connections that can be shown to prevail throughout some range
of instances;

2. Enable us to cite these empirical connections as bases for
explanations for particular instances or groups of instances. (p.
230)

Theories of phenomena like civil violence involve uncovering dependency

between the thing to be explained and another empirical influence or
circumstance that holds not just in one case, but in a range of cases. However,

this does not imply universal form and nonlimited scope. What we need to

acknowledge is that “empirical connections in social systems may hold quite

51
widely, yet remain contingent on a host of contextual conditions, only some of
which we can specify“ (Rule, 1988, p. 234). What Rule is pointing to is the need
to seek the specific settings in which a proposed explanatory factor may make
the crucial difference between occurrence and the absence of the thing to be
explained or its occurrence in varying forms.

Rule’s position sensitizes us to the potential multiple explanations for civil
violence. This does not mean that we need to explore every possible variable
that contributes to an outbreak of civil violence. What we need to aim for are
“theories of collective violence that specify particular connections that should
apply in particular settings, drawing from the infinite range of logical possibilities
those particular linkages that will matter empirically“ (Rule, 1988, p. 264). A riot
is a complex social phenomenon in which there often may be violent acts of
several different types. Some may be spontaneous and consummatory, whereas
others are planned as a means to specific ends. McPhail (1991) points out that
most “students of the crowd [and of collective behavior] have proceeded to
develop explanations for unanimous and homogeneous behavior, for
phenomena that rarely occur and are short-lived, if and when they do occur“ (p.
xxviii). He argues persuasively that while people do behave collectively, “what
they do together varies greatly in complexity, in duration and in the proportion of
the gathering that actually participates“ (p. xxviii). In short, heterogeneity is the
rule rather than the exception (p. 221).

This position allowed for a more rigorous approach to collective behavior.

As McPhail (1991) points out, previous “attempts to describe and explain the

52
crowd have been an impossibly large task to date. By breaking the task into
smaller components, the problem is reduced to several tasks, each of more
realistic proportions“ (p. 185). This advice proved valuable. It allowed me to
discern the different phases in the riots, the different targets, and the different

motivations of the rioters.

1.5 DataamLMethods

As pointed out in the previous section, civil violence is not a homogeneous
phenomenon but is marked by diversity of types. Some parts of the riot may
involve purposive, organized pursuit of collective interests, and others may be
irrational acts by persons caught up in the emotional contagion of the mob.
Different types of riots involve different antecedents. This study focuses on riots
between a middleman minority and a majority in a context where both groupings
are excluded from state power. It argues that two necessary conditions for
conflict to emerge between the two groups are that the majority must perceive
competition with the middleman as unfair, and there must be a lack of
interdependence. If these two conditions exist, then any flashpoint can translate
conflict into violence. The task is to explore the social, economic, and political
relations between the two groups in order to ascertain whether the two conditions
exist. In this regard, two methods have been widely used to study civil violence,
the natural history and the value added approach. The approach in this study is
distinguished from the natural history approach, which involves the claim that
there exist certain empirical uniforrnities of sequence in the unfolding of an

episode, and the value added approach, In which each determinant Is a

53
necessary condition for the next to Operate as a determinant in an episode of
collective behavior.

This dissertation is based on case studies of the 1949 and 1985 riots.
Case studies are useful because they allow for intensive research of single
instances and therefore provide for great depth of information. However, one
has to sacrifice the ability to generalize. Rather than testing hypotheses, case
studies generate hypotheses and allow us to raise the right questions.

Much of the political violence in South Africa is simply given the label
black-on-black violence or ethnic conflict. This is seen as a form of explanation.
However, it is not enough to name an event and see it as a form of explanation.
The challenge is to tell as much of the whole story as possible to understand a
particular event or series of events, rather than just giving them a label such as
ethnic conflict. We have to reveal relationships, fill in the gaps, provide a sense
of history and process, and illustrate the circumstances giving rise to such
events. The case study approach allows for empirical richness. A major part of
the study is the historical narrative itself. In conducting the two case studies
reported here, I utilized both primary and secondary data sources.

Skocpol (1984), commenting on the methodological basis of historical
sociology, writes:

Because wide-ranging comparisons are so often crucial for analytical

historical sociologists, they are more likely to use secondary sources of

evidence than those who apply models to, or develop interpretations of

single cases. . . . From the point of view of historical sociology . . . a

dogmatic insistence on redoing primary research for every investigation

would be disastrous; it would rule out most comparative-historical

research. If a topic is too big for purely primary research—and if excellent
studies by specialists are already available in some profusion—secondary

54

sources are appropriate as the basic source of evidence for a given study.

Using them is not different from survey analysts reworking the results of

previous surveys rather than asking all questions anew. (p. 382)

Goldthorpe (1991) argues that Skocpol’s position

shows the pressure that bears on grand historical sociologists to move

towards the positivistic, Spencerian programme—“excellent“ historical

studies by specialists can be “the basic source of evidence“ for the wide-

ranging sociologist. Also revealing is the reference to “redoing the

primary research“-as if it were apparent that the same result as before

would necessarily emerge. (p. 226)
For Goldthorpe, in cases where sociologists need to conduct historical research,
“they must be ready for a harder life--for research typically conducted, as one
historian has put it, ”below the data poverty line’“ (p. 226).

Following Goldthorpe, l have not relied solely on secondary sources, but
have consulted primary material, as extensively as possible, so as to provide a
further understanding of the riots. l have, however, also drawn upon secondary
material where it offers direct value of its own or where no alternative was to
hand.

There is a notable dearth of research both on the Durban region and on
the political economy of Natal as a whole in the period between 1930 and 1950.
In tracing a particular thread of Durban’s social history, it has been necessary to
negotiate the gaps in existing regional historiography and also to come to terms
with some understanding of wider social, economic, political, and cultural
processes.

In approaching this task, one is immediately confronted with the

intractability of documentary sources. Since dominated classes have

(understandably) seldom bequeathed written accounts of their experiences to

 

55
future generations, the historical track is made that much more difficult. In South
Africa, when the lives of ordinary African people have had occasion to insinuate
their way into official records, more often than not they appear as criminal
statistics, fatalities in riots and industrial accidents, and, above all, as
commodities of labor power.

The Durban Town Clerk’s files, while sharing in the shortcomings of many
official records. contain some valuable material. The files provided a detailed
account of the administration of the Borough, but also yielded a vast range of
written sources, mostly in the form of official and unofficial reports, petitions,
resolutions of mass meetings, confidential police reports, and the like, which
were highly suggestive of the nature of the lived experience of ordinary African
people in Durban. The Report Books of Durban’s Superintendent of Police and
Durban’s Magistrates and Criminal Court Records were also rich in information.
The most useful of these were the Minutes of the Native Advisory Board, which
provided some evidence of the ways in which Africans attempted to make
collective decisions governing their lives. The 14 volumes of evidence to the
Commission of Enquiry provided a wealth of information. Access was also
gained to memoranda and press statements of the African National Congress
and Natal Indian Congress. The major regional newspapers, including the Natal
Dailynlam and NataLMercury were also consulted.

Wherever possible, these primary sources were cross-referenced in order
to verify the information that was emerging. In turn, they were also assessed in

relation to such secondary sources as do form part of the regional historiography.

56

In this way, an informal triangulation of cross-checking seemed to provide a
sound sense of the veracity of both formal and nonforrnal primary sources.

Documentary materials such asthese were complemented and supported
by oral testimonies. Access was gained to interviews conducted by historian lain
Edwards as well as those collected by the now defunct Natal University Oral
History Project. These latter interviews were conducted with residents of Cato
Manor in the 19403. The interviews were conducted with both leadership figures
and ordinary residents. Through these interviews, insights were gained into
everyday life In Cato Manor. The study also benefited from lengthy discussions
with Dr. David Hemson, who has written a doctoral dissertation on dockworkers
in the 19403. It was possible, using these data, to validate much information
within the oral tradition and between the oral and written sources.

For the 1985 violence, newspapers were used as the first line of
information. However, this proved of limited value as a (partial) State of
Emergency (restricting press reports) prevailed during this time. This meant that
the information carried in newspapers was largely dependent on information
supplied by the Police Division of Public Relations, the Office of the State
President, and the Ministries of Law and Order, and Justice. The journal
indicatQLSauthAfflm, which provided comprehensive accounts of the violence
during the 1985 period, proved a valuable source. This allowed for the building
of a chronology of events and for an amplification of the limited data contained

in the press reports.

57

This dissertation benefited from having access to a study conducted by
Sutcliffe and Wellings (1985) immediately prior to the violence. The study was
a social survey based on a rigorous random sampling of tenants in eight localities
in Inanda. The 26 questions put to respondents covered four broad areas: life
conditions (e.g., “What do you like most/least about living here?“), attitudes
towards landlords (e.g., “Do you have any problems with your landlord?“), future
developments (about improvements to living conditions, removals, and so on),
and housing and population characteristics. Generally, answers in the first three
categories revealed affective data—attitudes, Opinions, and preferences, whereas
those in the last category provided a more “factual“ pool of information. A study
conducted by the Surplus People’s Project (SPP) (1983) provided valuable
information on landlord-tenant relations. The SPP interviewed people who had
opted for state-developed site service schemes. The interviews revealed tenant
perceptions of their relations with landlords and insights into the socioeconomic
conditions in the squatter settlements.

Access was gained to interviews conducted by the Institute of Black
Research (of the University of Natal, Durban) with Inanda residents immediately
after the violence. These interviews were done randomly, and sought African
residents’ perceptions of what caused the violence, whether there were strong
anti-Indian violence sentiments before the violence, and who were the
participants in the violence. Oral testimonies of Inanda residents conducted by
the Institute of Social and Economic Research (of the University of Durban-

Westville) a year after the violence were particularly useful. These interviews

58
targeted Indian and African landlords, warlords, and Inkatha and United
Democratic Front leaders in the area. Lengthy discussions were held with
academics who have research interests in Inanda. These academics included
Dr. Michael Sutcliffe, Dr. Doug Hindson, Mark Byerley, and Maurice Makhatini,
all based at the University of Durban-Westville.

A sample survey of perceptions of the 1985 riots undertaken by the
Institute of Black Research also proved valuable. A sample of 408 respondents
was drawn from the African, Indian, and colored townships in the greater Durban
metropolitan area. Of the sample, 46.51% were Africans, 32.99% were Indians,
and 20.49% were coloreds. The sample was randomly selected and devised to
ensure a spatial spread of respondents. The interviews were concluded on the
weekend beginning 23 August 1985, except for the African townships of Umlazi
and Clerrnont, which were surveyed one week later.

The chronology and supporting data for the 1985 violence were, therefore,
established using four major data sources: first, newspaper reports verified and
amplified by information from the Indicator Project and its journal indicatQLSoutn
Attica; second, a range of supportive data from empirical projects; third. oral data
used (again) to verify and extend the empirical data; and finally, insights gleaned
from expert consultation. Together, these sets of information provided a full and

rich data base whose internal coherence could be checked with relative ease.

1.6 ANoteonlerminology
Afiicanzooloredzwnitezlndran. Racial categories in South Africa are
fraught with difficulty. Officially, for example, a black was defined as “a person

59

who is, or is generally accepted as a member of any aboriginal race or tribe of
Africa.“ The legislature was never able to define the colored category, other than
negatively. A colored person is therefore part of a residual category: “a person
who is not a White person or a Black“ (Boberg, 1977, p. 99). With the rise of the
Black Consciousness movement in the early 19703 underthe leadership of Steve
Biko, the official racial categories were rejected. While accepting that all South
Africans were Africans, the Black Consciousness movement defined all those
who were disenfranchised as black. This subsumed the categories African,
Indian, and colored. It is for this reason that all speeches and writings of
progressive politicians and academics were prefaced with the words “so-called
coloreds.“ In this study, black refers to coloreds. Africans, and Indians.
However, because apartheid entrenched real differences between the
disenfranchised, the categories Indian, colored, and African have been
acknowledged and utilized for analytical purposes. Colored refers to those of
“mixed race,“ African to all indigenous Nguni-speaking South Africans, and
Indian to all those who trace their ancestral heritage to the Indian subcontinent.

Black. A politically inspired mgmssjye label used to describe Africans,
coloreds. and Indians, i.e., all those who were discriminated against under the
apartheid regime. Its origins lay in the Black Consciousness ideology, which
attempted to unite other than white South Africans and make them feel proud of
the label.

Xhosa. An Nguni language spoken by Africans living in the Eastern Cape

(T ranskei, Ciskei, etc). The apartheid regime corralled Xhosa-speakers into two

 

60
separate homelands (T ranskei, Ciskei) and gave them independence in 1976
and 1980, respectively.

Zulu. An Nguni language spoken mainly by Africans in Natal Province
(KwaZulu and Natal). The apartheid regime attempted to set up an independent
state (like Transkei) for Zulu speakers. This was rejected by KwaZqu’s Chief
Minister Buthelezi in favor of a high degree of autonomy over the police force,

civil service, etc., within South Africa.

1.7 Summary

This chapter reviewed the previous work on the riots and the general
literature on collective violence. The literature on ethnic competition and conflict
was looked at with particular attention to the theory of middleman minorities. The
studies on collective violence were found to be inadequate at a number of levels,
especially at the level of seeking single causes for the outbreak of violence and
treating riots as a single event. It was proposed that because riots are complex
phenomena, it would be more productive to utilize a range of theories to study
them. Also, because collective behavior almost invariably involves more
heterogeneity of actions than is commonly assumed in the literature, it was
suggested that the best way to study collective action is to break it up into
smaller components.

Armed with the above theoretical insights, we now turn to the next chapter

detailing the predisposing conditions to the 1949 and 1985 riots.

CHAPTER 2

PREDISPOSING CONDITIONS TO THE 1949 AND 1985 RIOTS

2.1 lnh’oduction

This chapter begins by setting out the central features of, and outlining the
most significant changes in, the political economy of Natal and (in its main port
city) Durban during the period 01920-1950. Particular attention is paid to
economic and political developments that had an impact on lndo-African
relations.

The second part of the chapter examines developments in the political
economy of Natal in the later period 01963-1985. A central focus of the chapter
is an analysis of racial trends (Indian-African) in employment in this period. The
political developments in the Indian and African communities in the 19803 are
then discussed. An analysis of the crises in the policy of segregation and
apartheid is undertaken for each period (the 19403 and the 19803, respectively).

It is argued that these factorsnthe changes in the economic conditions in
the respective periods, and their differential impact on Indians and Africans; the
nature and character of political organizations formed or existing in Natal/Durban
in the 19403 and 19803, and the crises in segregation and apartheid in these
years—constituted the major predisposing conditions to the 1949 and 1985 lndo-

African riots.

61

 

ne

El

9):

Oil

62
2.2 IheEolitioaLEconomyoLNatal

In 1824 white settlers established a trading post in Durban. Within the
next three decades Durban developed into a harbor town, which encouraged the
expansion of secondary and tertiary economic activities. The former trading post
experienced rapid expansion between 1870 and 1890, particularly inthe shipping
and allied industries. This was associated with increased production of raw
materials, as well as diamonds and gold especially in the Northern cape and
Transvaal (Swanson, 1968). Natal became a British colony in 1843.

British settlers found sugar-cane the most suitable crop for cultivation.
However, from the outset they were plagued by labor shortages.

African labor could not be attracted on a consistent basis. African workers
would often leave their place of employment for up to two months to look after
their own crops. Frustrated, Natal planters turned to the idea of importing labor
(T hompson, 1952).

It was the need for labor in Natal, especially on the sugar plantations, that
led to the importation of indentured Indians into Natal. Upon the
recommendation of the Governor of the Cape Colony, Sir George Grey, the first
group of Indian laborers arrived on 16 November 1860 (Meer, 1969, p. 10).

By the late 18703, Indian immigrants consisted of three distinct groups:
“indentured“ immigrants who were under contract, “free“ Indians who had
completed their period of indentureship and who elected to remain in Natal rather
than return to India, and “passenger“ Indians who came to South Africa at their

own cost (Bagwandeen, 1989, p. 4).

63

In looking at the shifts in the political economy of the region, one of the
most significant in the post-First World War period was the growth in the urban
population. The 1921 census reveals that 12% of Natal’s population was
urbanized. By 1951 the figure had Ieapt to 32%.

The urbanization of the Indian population was markedly rapid. In 1921,
the figure stood at 21%. By 1951, the percentage of urbanized Indians stood at
74%. The percentage of Africans increased threefold, from 5% in 1921 to 16%
In 1951 (Fair, 1982, p. 22). The move to the towns was motivated in part by the
changes being wrought in the rural political economy of the region. Freund
(19913) has pointed out how Indian farming could not escape the twin pincers of
legislation restricting access to the land and capitalist expansion and fell into
decline. Similar processes squeezed out small-scale peasant or African tenant
farming.

In the reserves where capitalist expansion was limited, 3 process of
impoverishment had set in. Hemmed in by the 1913 Natives Land Act, the
reserves came to be characterized by overpopulation, overcultivation, and
overstOcking. This degeneration was reflected in increasing male migrancy out
of the reserves.

Industrialization also contributed to this urbanization process. (It is
important not to postulate a “fit“ between industrialization and urbanization. The
latter grew at a much faster pace than the rate of industrial growth.)
Industrialization was, in the main, centered within the greater Durban region.

Thus, for example, by 1950, 70% of manufacturing employment in Natal was

34
concentrated in greater Durban (Burrows, 1959, p. 198). The central period of
industrial expansion was in the 1940s. Stimulated bythe war, Durban's economy
continued to grow in the postwar period. There was growth in all the main
manufacturing sectors—clothing, construction, chemicals, engineering, and food
(Burrows, 1959, pp. 198-199).

The spread and growth of industrialization did not herald the birth of a full-
blown proletarianization process. During the 19203, migrancy characterized the
labor force. This characteristic was reinforced by fluctuating labor demands of
the docks linked to the level of shipping activity and the seasonal labor demand
of the holiday trade. The growth of a manufacturing sector did not see the end
of migrancy and the shift to more stabilized labor. An official government
estimate for the year 1946 revealed that of the 104,100 or so Africans living in
Durban, about 77,500 were migrants, and only 26,600 permanently urbanized
(Kelly, 1989, p. 90). These figures must be read in the context that many African
workers fell in the intermediate category of short-term migrants or weekly
commuters. However, the persistence of migrancy, seemingly in defiance of the
process of secondary industrialization, is remarkable.

The severing of ties with the rural areas was more complete among
Indians. Between 1921 and 1946, the percentage of Indians employed in
secondary industry rose from 9% to 21%. Employment of Indians in agriculture
declined significantly in this period. Many Indian farmers and market gardeners

also left the land as a result either of rising rents, lack of finance, a discriminatory

65
rail tariff, or lucrative opportunities in commerce and industry in the urban areas

(Arkin, 1981, p. 171).

2.3 mm

The Natal region between 1920 and 1950 came to be characterized by a
single major urban industrial center-Durban (see Map 2).

Kuper, Watts, and Davies (1958) have pointed to the unique racial
composition of Durban compared to the other major cities in South Africa during
this period. First, there was a high concentration of Indians within its boundaries:
by the end of the 19408, 40.16% of the total South African Indian population lived
in Durban, as compared with 5.01% whites, 1.51% coloreds. and 1.57%
Africans.‘ And second, whites, lndians, and Africans were represented in
almost equal proportions (between 30% and 34%), with Indians as the largest
group (Kuper et al., 1958, p. 50).

This numerical equality of the main racial groups in Durban was not
reflected In their equal participation in the economic life of Durban. The 1951
census revealed the extent to which whites had come to dominate "white-collar"
occupations. They made up 70.83% of the professional, technical, and related
workforce; 67.57% of the managerial group; 86.31% of office workers, and
54.62% of salespersons. Of the black groups, only Indians constituted an

appreciable proportion of workers in any of these categories—28.92% of the

 

1These figures for Asiatics are based on the 1959 census. However, the
number of Asiatics other than Indians, in South Africa as a whole is very small.
The main migration of Indians was to Natal, and the restrictions on inter-
provincial movement prevented them from leaving the province.

66

 

    
 
 

 

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Map 2: Population distribution in Durban: Late 1940s-early 19503.

 

 

 

 

67

managerial class and 36.72% of the salespersons. In each of the census
categories pertaining to manual work, Africans provided a large proportion of
workers, ranging from 38.45% in farming and fishing to 80.11% of service
workers. The relatively poorly paid category of domestic servant was almost
entirely African.2 Kuper et al. (1958) pointed out that the census revealed that
Indians participated in the economy of Durban at two levels-the white level of
managers, salespersons. and employers, and the African level of manual work
(pp. 64-65).

There was also a significant Indian trader community. Padayachee and
Morrell (1991) point to two waves of Indian merchants. The first wave arrived
some 10 to 15 years after the indentured Indians had arrived in 1860. They
included very wealthy merchants as well as smaller traders. This second strand
of smaller traders was later joined by a few formerly indentured laborers who had
completed their contracts and managed to accumulate some capital. The
second wave came to the fore in the post-World War I period. This wave marked
a shift from wholesaling to retail trade. This group’s activities were relatively
more parochial, with direct importing from India, and international business ties,
characteristic ofthe first wave, decreasing in importance (Padayachee 8. Morrell,
1991, p. 97). Padayachee and Morrell point out that because of the lack of

white competition for Indian and African custom (by choice especially in

the more remote rural areas), and African competition (by differentiated

racial legislation and custom), the post-1914 Indian commercial sector
(the second wave) was handed an “artificially protected market" in the

 

2The figures are from Kuper et al. (1958), who draw on the 1951 census.
Income data from Africans were not collected in the census.

68

racially segmented African and Indian retail and wholesale trade,
especially in Natal. (p. 102)

”Race" was central to the "discourse of domination“ (Boonzaier, 1988, pp.
58-67) in Durban. This manifested itself in a process that located whites at the
pinnacle of a social hierarchy, Indians mid-way, and Africans at the base.
However, these were not neatly compartmentalized groups. The groups were
involved in complex interactions. Individual and communal life experiences and
identities are influenced by social interaction at a number of levels. It is only
through an understanding ofthe distinctive hierarchy of Durban which influenced
the shaping of particular identities that we can move to an analysis of the causes

of the 1949 riots. It is to this that we must now turn.

2.4 mm

This section analyzes the effects that the changes in Durban’s political
economy had on Indian-African relations. Central to this analysis are the

developments in the labor market, housing, trade, and transport spheres.

2.4.1 Nonracialismandfiegmented
LaboLMadsets

Census figures showed a large increase in Durban’s population between
1936 and 1951. This consisted of almost equal portions of Africans, Indians, and
whites (T able 1).

The figures for Indians and whites show, in the main, the natural increase

of a fully proletarianized population. Up until the mid-1930s, the majority of

69

Africans were male and migrant. Through the 1940s, the number of African

women increased substantially (Table 2).

Table 1

Population by Race, Metropolitan Durban, 1936-1951

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

w
Date Africans Indians Coloreds Whites Total
1936 70,531 89.469 7.753 9,804 264,577
1946 113,612 117,065 11,449 130.143 372,269
1951 150.732 160,674 17,457 151,1 11 479,974
Source: Burrows, 1959b.
Table 2
Urban African Population by Gender, 1911-1951
Date Male Female Total
1911 19,472 1,511 20,938
1921 38,438 6,345 44,783
1936 49.313 14,234 63,547
1946 82.268 30,068 1 12.336
1951 100,768 45.049 145.817

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: Government Census; these figures are probably underestimates
as official statistics have tended to underestimate the size of the urban
population.

From Table 2 It can be seen that there was a significant increase of

African women between 1936 and 1946 (an increase of 15,834). There was also

a decreasing African masculinity rate. It decreased from 6.6:1 in 1921, to 3.4:1

70
in 1936, and to 2.1:1 in 1956 (Maasdorp & Humphreys, 1975, p. 10). Two main
reasons have been advanced for the increased influx of African women.

The first is economic and encompasses the effects of the breakdown of

the subsistence reserve economies, which leaves women no alternative

but to become migrants themselves. The second category encompasses
personal reasons and involves the desire of women to live with their

'migrant' husbands. (Creecy, 1979)

Benefiting from the increased markets brought on by the war and
protection from foreign competition, the 1940s was a period of rapid economic
growth. Manufacturing expanded significantly with an emphasis on capital
intensity. Mechanization required a more stable workforce and also afforded
opportunities for the employment of African women (Padayachee, Vawda, 8.
Tichmann, 1985, pp. 13-14). This "permanency” in the urban areas also resulted
from the erosion of the subsistence economy which meant "migrants“ had
nowhere else to go, a point captured poignantly by dockworkers leader, Zulu
Phungula, in the following interchange:

Controller of Industrial Manpower to leaders of dock workers: "If you do

not wish to work for less than 83 a day, then, of course, you must go

home and the other people will come and do the work.“ Zulu Phungula:

"The Government must show us where to go because our homes are here

in Durban.” (Department of Labor File 1946, Minutes of Meeting, 11

March 1942; quoted in Hemson, 1977, p. 88)

The Indian population of Natal had become increasingly urbanized. In
1921, the percentage of Indians living in the urban areas of Natal was 54.8%.
By 1946, the figure had risen to 68.0% (Arkin, 1981, p. 134).

There was an upsurge in worker action during the early 1940s.

While in the period between 1930 and 1939 a total of 26,254 Blacks had

struck work for an average of 2.7 man days and a total loss of 71 .078 man
days, the corresponding figures for the period between 1940 and 1945

71

were 52,394 Black workers on strike for an average of 4.2 man days and
a total loss of 220,205 man days. (Padayachee et al., 1985, p. 14)

Strike action in Durban took a particular form—it was characterized by the unified
action of African and Indian workers who were mainly members of unions
organized by the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) (Hemson, 1977, pp.
100-101).

This nonracialism became evident in the 1937 strike at the Durban Falkirk
Plant. Over 400 Indian and African workers struck because of the retrenchment
of 16 members of their union, the then unrecognized Natal Iron and Steel
Workers Union. The strikers were able to win most of their demands. The strike
marked the start of Indian/African worker unity. This unity was important
because with the number of African workers in the manufacturing industry
growing, “a united working class was essential for strike action to be successful.
Such unity in the paper-board making industry (where African workers were in
the majority) and in the textile industry (where Indian workers were dominant)
secured victories in both cases in 1942' (Hemson, 1977, pp. 100-101).

However, the response of employers to the Dunlop strike in December
1942 was to sow the seeds of racial conflict. The strike resulted from the
dismissal of prominent members of the nonracial Natal Rubber Workers' Union,
and the company’s attempt to replace the Union with a ”company" union. Both
African and Indian workers supported the strike action. Management responded
by recruiting African workers from the reserves. Union members were
dismissed, and no more Indian workers were employed. Of the 378 African

workers, 290 of them were dismissed. They were replaced by 581 new workers.

72
The defeat at Dunlop was to have a significant negative impact on the attempts
at nonracial worker action (Edwards, 1986).

By the mid-1940s, this joint action had evaporated. It was replaced by a
strong Africanist perspective. Thus, the Natal Federation of African Trade
Unions, which had five unions affiliated to it in 1947, "would not accept as a
member any union which had non-Natives in its members roll, or which had a
political creed” (Hemson, 1977, p. 109).

There were a number of factors that militated against nonracial worker
action. First, there were structural constraints. The labor market was racially
stratified. Three racially stratified labor markets could be distinguished in the
mid-1930s. White workers dominated skilled positions, while white, Indian, and
colored workers competed for semi-skilled positions. Africans and Indians vied
for unskilled jobs. The racially stratified markets were reinforced by a general
employer outlook that the 'nimbleness of mind and finger,” the “stability“ and
“responsibility" of Indians set them apart for semi-skilled jobs, while the "robust
physical strength" and ”unreliability“ of Africans made them "suited“ to unskilled
labor (Smith, 1950, pp. 453-455).

African and Indian unskilled workers often worked alongside each other,

especially in factories, but social conventions had developed which

demarcated specific occupations ”African” or "Indian.“ Stevedores, for
example, were Africans, municipal street cleaners were Indians. Amongst

Africans, occupations were often connected to homeboy networks; racial
cleavages were overlaid with regional and ethnic affiliations. (Nuttall, n.d.,

p- 3)
The growth of the economy in the early 1940s did not alter the position of

African workers substantially. Indian workers were evenly distributed among the

73
three skill groups—32.5% skilled, 31.7% semi-skilled, and 35.8% unskilled--as
compared to whites (2.1% unskilled) and Africans (83.5% unskilled)
(Padayachee et al., 1985, p. 38). By the late 19408, ”African” skill levels had not
altered significantly, and job turnover continued to be high. The average annual
income earned by Indians in the manufacturing sector was R306 as compared
to Africans R192 and whites R760 (Arkin, 1981).

The Industrial Conciliation Act (IC) of 1924 militated against formal
workplace unionism for Africans and created obstacles to nonracial worker
organization. The IC Act prevented Africans from having access to registered
unions. This legislation also allowed white, Indian, and colored members of
registered unions to separate their interests from those of African workers.
Despite the constraints, the CPSA, building on the need for manufacturing to
have sections of the African workforce, settled in the urban areas, and victories
achieved in the strikes over wages in 1937 facilitated the spread of nonracial
unions. However, by 1942, there began a shift in CPSA tactics. They began
placing emphasis on organizing “parallels“ and supporting independent unions
as opposed to unregistered nonracial unions.

The effects of the Dunlop strike of 1942 probably influenced the CPSA’s
shift. Nuttall (n.d.) argued that the tactical shift also reflected African-Indian
tensions in the workplace and beyond, and the problems of persuading Indian
workers to join unregistered unions (p. 30). Padayachee et al. (1985) point out
that Indian workers brought a particular cultural baggage to the workplace (p.

150). They carried with them particular religious and traditional beliefs and

74
customs, which were often obstacles to the recognition and development of their
class interests. Thus, Billy Peters (quoted in Padayachee et al., 1985), a leading
CPSA and unionist during the 19405, points out that

Indian workers come into the [trade union] movement with supernatural

beliefs—their background and environment-what they were fed with from

youth. No matter how much of scientific knowledge you tried to equip
them with, those religious and supernatural beliefs remained. They could

not discard their past. From this path you ask them to adopt a

revolutionary outlook. (p. 150)

The assessment that there were advantages to be gained from registered
unions participating in Industrial Councils on behalf of African parallels and the
emergence of African independent unions probably also influenced this shift.
The independent unions barely survived beyond 1946. The parallels were
concentrated in those industrial sectors where mechanization was advancing
rapidly, and where new unions, affiliated to the Durban Trades and Labor
Council, had emerged. These registered unions consisted oflargely semi-skilled
machine workers, who had a material interest in preventing undercutting by
cheaper African labor. The greater the number of workers these unions
represented, the stronger their position. For these reasons the new registered
unions sought to organize and control unskilled African workers. Parallels had
a longer life than the independent unions, surviving into the late 1940s.

Second, one must seek the demise of joint action in the response of
organizations which influenced both the unions and the general political terrain.

The political organizations within the Indian and African communities displayed

a narrow outlook on racial cooperation.

75

A. W. G. Champion, the Chairperson of the Natal ANC, in giving evidence
to the Rural Dealers Licensing Inquiry Committee of 1941, called on the
committee to give preference to African applicants in African areas (Hemson,
1977, p. 108). In the same year, Anton Lembede. later one ofthe founders of the
ANC Youth League, called on Africans to stop being the milk cow of the other
racial groups, and become an economic and political force to be reckoned with.
Followers of Lembede wanted Africans to favor their own businesses and
cooperatives, and frequently quoted a Black American phrase, “Let the money
circulate among the color line” (Kirk, 1983, p. 31).

In 1944, the ANC Youth League was formed. Their position was not very
different from that of Champion's. In 1944, Jordan Ngubane (cited in Gerhart,
1979), one of the founders of the League, wrote in Unkundlayaflanm, the official
mouthpiece of the ANC:

As long as the African people are not welded into a compact organized

group. . . they will never realise their rational aspiration. When they meet

other non-European groups, they will be an unwieldy encumbrance,
serving the purpose of being stepping stones for the better organized

groups. (p. 75)

The ANC did not develop a mass base in Natal. In 1945, their
membership totaled 700, and by 1947 it had grown to 3,000. By 1949,
membership figures had dropped to 1,200 (Kirk, 1983, p. 35).

The Natal Indian Congress (NIC) displayed a similar racial narrowness in
the early 1940s. Up to 1945, they were led by a conservative leadership of A. I.
Kajee and P. R. Pather. Hemson (1977) accurately sums up the leadership of

both Congresses in the early 1940s:

76

The direction of political action was more towards aggressive defense of

the trading, investment, and residential rights of the Indian people (the

African National Congress in Natal, led by A. W. G. Champion, at this time

being virtually dormant and almost limited to a pressure group making the

same demands for the African people). (p. 108)

Padayachee et al. (1985) have pointed out that rather than reinforcing the
nonracial impulse of the workers during strike action, the NIC under Kajee
highlighted sectional and racial divisions among the striking workers by
concentrating on Indian workers as part of the Indian community (p. 132). Thus,
during the 1937 Falkirk strike, Kajee (quoted in Padayachee et al., 1985) warned,
“This lsthe turning point. We must demand justice from higher powers, not only
for these lndians, but for all other Indians who are ground down. Let us
remember that we are Indians first and everything else after" (p. 104).

By the mid-1940s, leadership of the NIC had been wrested away from the
conservatives. The South African Indian Congress (which consisted of the NIC
and Transvaal Indian Congress) was now led by a high-ranking Communist, Dr.
Yusuf Dadoo, and Dr. G. M. Naicker. Signaling a new approach, a pact was
signed with the ANC. The Dadoo, Naicker. Zuma pact was a commitment to
united action.

However, at the local level, the Pact was met with opposition. The
misgivings of Msimang from the Natal ANC are captured by Gerhart (1979):

The Pact, Msimang implied, reflected a spirit of cooperation only at the

leadership level: Dr. Naicker. who had signed for the Natal lndians,

“represents a province in which he had, insofar as my executive

committee is aware, done nothing to foster the spirit of co-operation. . . .

Our Executive Committee has refrained from declaring what it knows to

be the universal feeling of the Africans in the Province as it would not like
to hasten a rupture within the ranks of Congress.“ (p. 104)

77
Despite the shift to a more militant, aggressive, and less accommodationist
politics of the NIC, distrust of the motives of the Indian politicians was voiced,
especially by the trading section of the African petty bourgeoisie.3

In opposing “all forms of racial oppression experienced by the Indian
people, the Indian class leadership was brought into direct support for mass
campaigns taking upthe demands of the Indian petty bourgeoisie, a group which
had an exploitative relationship with the masses of the African people“ (Hemson,
1977, p. 108). In any case, “the unity of African and Indian workers in Durban
was distant and broad co-operation and collective organization of the early
1940’s had disintegrated“ (Hemson, 1977, p. 108).

The role of the CPSA (after 1953, the SACP) in the building of nonracial
trade unions has already been noted. The CPA’s eventual support for the allied
war effort meant that the CPSA did not embrace the strike action of the period
enthusiastically. CPSA members who held leadership positions in unions
neglected the latter work and concentrated on the war effort. The CPA's
“diversion into questions outside the immediate concerns of working class and
trade union politics and the subsequently diminished support of the CPSA in the
defense and development of working class organization meant that the vitally
important task of establishing sound democratic organizational structures . . .
suffered a serious setback“ during the war years (Padayachee et al., 1985, p.

166).

 

3For differing interpretations of the nature ofthis shift, see Ginwala (1974) and
Padayachee et al. (1985).

 

78

During the war years, despite the split labor market, ethnic divides were
breached and nonracial worker action proliferated. The rapid expansion of the
economy meant that intense competition for jobs was minimized. Also, the
erosion of structural divides was facilitated by the CPSA and union activists
motivated both by the need for unity to ensure success in wage negotiations and
a commitment to nonracialism as a means to counter the divisive tactics of the
state. However, from the mid-19403 there was increasing hostility between
African and Indian workers.

African workers saw the expansion of industrial employment and upward

mobility in certain industries and occupations (for example, municipal

employment and weaving) as being blocked by Indian workers. The rapid
expansion of employment in manufacturing during the war years to some
extent obscured this problem, but with the downturn of economic growth
in the immediate post-war period, the lines of demarcation became

clearer. (Hemson, 1977, p. 103)

Indian semi-skilled workers, after the Second World War, threatened by
cheaper African labor, turned to an inward-looking unionism. In the lower-paid
jobs where Indians and Africans competed, the economic downturn increased
the intensity. This competition and the perception that Indians had better
chances of moving into higher-paid semi-skilled jobs meant that Africans
increasingly came to see Indians as “collective competitors and targets of
frustration, rather than as co—workers“ (Nuttall, 1989, p. 7).

Before moving on, it is necessary to delve in more detail into an important
strand in African political organization in Natal because it reveals a distinctively

ethnic outlook The late 1920s was a turbulent period in the region. In the

countryside, the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU), led by Allison

79
Wessels George Champion, swept through the countryside organizing work
stoppages and demands for increased wages (Bradford, 1987). In Durban, a
1929 beer-hall boycott saw mass participation. In 1930 the Communist Party led
a pass-buming campaign on “Dingaan’s Day“ (la Hausse, 1984).

This heightened political militancy produced responses from state and
capital that moved beyond short, sharp, and brutal repression. They came to see
Zulu ethnic nationalism and traditionalism as a defusing mechanism to the rising
tide of militancy. The old Zulu hierarchy, once perceived as a threat to the old
colonial order, now came to be viewed as an instrument to be co-opted in
defense of an expanding capitalist order (Cope, 1968, pp. 422-432). As Marks
(1989) has shown, the turbulence of the 19203 led architects of segregation,
such as Zululand MP G. N. Heaton-Nicholls, to espouse the need to nurture
ethnic-based organization to defuse class-based organizations and class
consciousness (p. 217). In 1938, the Zulu Cultural Society was founded. Its aim
was to preserve and promote the culture and customs of the “Zulu nation.“ It
was funded by the Native Affairs Department in Pretoria and had among its
patrons the Zulu Regent Mshiyeni ka Dinizulu.

However, Zulu ethnic nationalism was not simply imposed from above.
It found resonance among the royal and chiefly order, who saw it as a means to
perpetuate or resurrect its status and power. It also ironically found support
among the Christian converts (amakho/wa), the intelligentsia, and small-scale
entrepreneurs. Education and the accumulation of capital were seen by this

grouping as a means to upward mobility. Like the Muslim merchants of the

80

19003 who sought to distinguish themselves from the “coolie3,“ this grouping
wanted to hive themselves off from the African working class. They wanted to
be fully assimilated into civil society. However, expanding segregationist
legislation put a lid on opportunities for capital accumulation and their
incorporation into civil society. Their entrance into civil society blocked and
segregation forcing them backwards into the arms of the African poor, many in
this grouping turned in the 19303 to one of the many institutional forms through
which a wide popular Zulu constituency began to be mobilized and an elite Zulu
identity constructed (Ia Hausse, 1984).

In the 19303, Zulu ethnic nationalism was beginning to have a broad
appeal to the old chiefly order, some members of the African intelligentsia, and
small-scale entrepreneurs. This shared identification with the reconstructed Zulu
ethnic nationalism was not as extraordinary as it first appears, for “on many
occasions the new elite were indeed the old in new guise, the sons of chiefs and
the aristocracy having had preferential access to the resources necessary for the
acquisition of education and modern skills“ (Marks, 1978, pp. 190—191). Other
actors also saw the power of ethnicity to attract a broader constituency. Bradford
(1987) has shown how the ICU of Natal was distinguished from the national ICU
by its appeal to a Zulu ethnic consciousness (pp. 101-103).

This reconstructed Zulu ethnic nationalism was to bear heavily on the
politics of the region. As Marks has noted, despite the development in the 19403
of a powerful

pan-South African nationalist feeling which was chanelled into a
revitalised ANC . . . the inter-war flirtation by the Natal elite with ethnic

81
nationalism nonetheless left its legacy, and it remained a powerful force

at different levels in society, mediating perceptions of and responses to
at times traumatic social change. (pp. 223-224)

2.4.2 EmpenLaniflousing

A vigorous anti-Indianism from the white population had begun to emerge
at the end of the nineteenth century. This anti-Indianism in Durban was
translated into a series of by-laws that restricted Indian right to residence and
trade (Pachai, 1979, pp. 30-35). The Durban Land Alienation Ordinance of 1922,
for example, empowered the Durban City Council to restrict ownership or
occupation of municipal property. When new areas were developed by the
Council, Indians were prevented from acquiring sites through the use of the
Ordinance (Bagwandeen, 1983, p. 20).

In order to escape these strictures, Indians began acquiring land outside
the municipal boundaries. In 1933, these areas became incorporated into the
municipality and became known as added areas.

While the City Council restricted lndians’ right to trade and residence, they
sought to ensure that Africans’ stay in the urban areas was temporary. Formal
accommodation for Africans was woefully inadequate. Since African workers
were regarded as “temporary sojoumers.“ much of the accommodation was
designed for single men. As African women entered the urban areas, they had
to seek alternative accommodation. By the early 19403, the lack of formal
housing was to reach crisis proportions. During this time, Justice F. N. Broome

(quoted In Ladlau, 1975), in his report on “native“ grievances, concluded that “the

82
paramount grievance of Durban natives is that there is not sufficient housing
accommodation for them“ (p. 11).

In the 19203 and 19303, Africans began to turn to the Added Areas just
as Indians did in the early part of the century. However, while the Indians turned
to the land as owners, Africans turned to it for tenancy. So emerged the “black
belt“ around Durban, “hemming it on nearly every side“ (Maylam, 1983, pp. 413-
414). “[Jjust inland from the Berea Ridge, where perhaps the greatest
concentration of Indian land ownership was found in Mayville—Cato Manor,
market gardening gave way to shack renting, especially with the great expansion
ofthe African urban population during and after the Second World War“ (Freund,
1991a,p.271)

Shack settlements offered benefits that the formal townships, like Lamont
and Chesterville, could not. The latter were subject to strict control by municipal
authorities. Shackland accommodation was cheap and in close proximity to work
places. Also, as Maasdorp and Humphreys (1975) point out, it created
opportunities for the development of the informal sector.

With the steady flow of migrants requiring shelter, African building

contractors made their appearance and erected shacks for the new

arrivals. Others operated as unlicensed traders (mainly fresh produce
and general dealers), or as hawkers or pedlars of meat and offal on the
roadside; in some areas unlicensed “buying clubs“ functioned as shops.

Some elderly women took in washing and in areas with no fresh water

supplies, water for drinking and cooking was purchased from African

carriers. Backyard motor mechanics, painters and other self-employed

artisans were also found. (Maasdorp 8. Humphreys, 1975, p. 15)

As Edwards (1989) has recently shown, Africans, far from being passive victims,

responded creatively to the urbanization process.

83

The municipal authorities’ response in the 19303 to Durban’s shack
settlements was guided by four fundamental concerns:

1. The needs of employers had to be met. This meant
accommodation had to be provided close to places of work.
Housing had to be segregated from the residential areas of whites.
The elimination of slums of shacks.

The housing of Africans in formal, controlled accommodation.
(Maylam, 1983. pp. 419-420)

PPN

The Council was aware that the shack settlements helped to alleviate their
own inability to provide officially licensed accommodation. However, the Council
was determined to take action because, in their view, “shantytowns created
conditions which allowed for the unrestricted entry of Africans into the city, and
posed alarming health, sanitation and policing problems (Edwards, 1989, p. 67).

“Action“ proved to be difficult. There were legal constraints to demolishing
shacks. “In 1943 the position was that a shack could not be demolished without
a court order, and to obtain a court order it was necessary to show that
alternative accommodation existed“ (Maylam, 1983, p. 423).

Concerned about the potential ofshackland growth, especially in the Cato
Manor Farm area, the Council tried to control existing shack settlements. This
hinged on a policy of “pegging.” Shacks were numbered and enumerated. All
shacks built after “pegging“ were destroyed. However, this only led to a process
of “shack shifting.“ People simply established new settlements, much to the
chagrin of the Council, in more central areas of the city.

Alongside “pegging,“ the Council served notices on landlords in Cato
Manor, ordering them to provide essential water and sanitation facilities.

Landlords opted for paying fines as it was considered cheaper than providing

34
services. Others evicted tenants, which exacerbated the process of “shack
shifting.“ Clearly, the Council failed to develop a coherent response to the need
for African housing. What the Council’s policy did do was to “produce a militant
African shantytown population growing weary of being continuously on the move“
(Edwards, 1989, p. 71).

While the Council grappled with the issues thrown up by African
urbanization, agitation from whites to restrict Indian land-ownership continued.
In reaction to this pressure, the Natal Provincial Administration proposed a plan
to divide the city into Indian, African, and white settlements (Ninth Interim Report,
1945).

The 1946 Indian Land Tenure Act was designed to facilitate this process.
The Cato Manor area, incorporating the African township of Chesterville, and the
shack areas in close proximity were earmarked for Indian residence. The Umlazi
Mission Reserve, south of the municipal boundary, was to rehouse African shack
dwellers.

The 1946 Act regulated the acquisition and occupation of property in Natal
in both rural and urban areas. The Act created two kinds of areas, Controlled
and Uncontrolled. The Controlled was white, the Uncontrolled was Indian. If a
member of the “Asiatic group“ had owned property in the Controlled Area before
21 January 1946 but had not occupied it, he could not do so after 21 January.
Commentators have pointed to the fact that this was the harshest legislation

against Indians to date (Bagwandeen, 1983; Pachai, 1979).

85

The Act led to the inauguration of a passive resistance campaign that had
popular support from the Indian community. One rally attracted over 15,000
people (Bagwandeen, 1983). Africans, on the other hand, saw the 1945
proposals and the 1946 Act as hurting mainly them. The city was being divided
between Indians and whites.

While Indians faced discriminatory provisions with regard to property
ownership, they were not as acute as those faced by Africans. The 1923 Native
(Urban Areas) Act was one among a myriad of discriminatory provisions. By
1951, Africans owned only 0.1% of the value of Durban's immovable property
(Kuper et al., 1958, p. 31).

The proposals placed further strictures on Iandownership for an aspirant
middle class and had profound effects for the shack dwellers. Despite the
unattractive living conditions in the shack areas, it had its positive features. It
was in the shantytowns that municipal controls could largely be escaped, while
jobs and the citywere in close proximity. Many shack dwellers felt that they were
sacrificing these advantages, so that Indians could move in (Riots Commission,
1949, evidence, pp. 224-242).

Large landlords had begun to emerge in Cato Manor. By 1945, Sayed
Omar owned a portion of land on which there were 164 shacks occupied by
about 1,000 tenants. Another landlord housed 1,200 tenants (Maylam, 1983, p.
418)

Constantly underthreat from legislation, the Council, and Indian landlords,

housing became a volatile issue. The shack dwellers were prepared to confront

86
the municipality. In September 1947, there was a march on City Hall after the
Council had destroyed 50 shacks in Cato Manor. There marchers refused to
move despite the threatened use of force by police. The City Council capitulated
and agreed to rebuild the shacks. However, the potential of lines of fracture

between Indians and Africans was always close.

2.4.3 Imders

There were numerous attempts to curtail the expansion of the Indian
trader class. Use was made of the Natal Dealers Act of 1897.

The Licensing Officer of Durban told the Lange Commission in 1921 that
“we do what we can to restrict further Indian Licences“ (quoted in Arkin, 1981, p.
165). Thus, out of 2,026 applicants for new licenses by Indians between 1909
and 1919, 876 or 43% were granted. Out of the 1,509 white applications, 1,392
or 92% were granted (Arkin, 1981, p. 166). Despite this, the size of the Indian

trading class rivaled that of whites, as Table 3 indicates.

Table 3

The Number and Proportion of Trading Licenses Held by
Race Groups in Durban, 1930-1946

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whites Indians Africans
Year No. % No. % No. %
1930 3,931 76.02 1,164 22.52 76 1.46
1946 6,731 54.29 5,327 42.98 339 2.73

 

Source: Arkin, 1981, p. 169.

 

87

Indians dominated “non-European“ trade in Durban. This monopoly was
helped by the effective exclusion of Indians and Africans from white shops by a
combination of high prices and racist shopkeepers and customers. It was this
dominance that was to see the anti-black-marketeer campaign of 1946 take a
particular form.

Just after the Second World War, the Communist Party galvanized
thousands of Indian and African workers into protesting against the escalating
food prices and frequent food shortages. During the warthere was a spectacular
rise in the price of basic foodstuffs, and many black families were unable to
purchase sufficient food. A survey of African school children during the war
revealed that 40% of them were suffering from clinical malnutrition (Walker,
1983, pp. 70-72). After the war, prices continued to rise, accompanied by
shortages. These shortages were often caused by manufacturers and
wholesalers withholding supplies and the uncontrolled growth of black
marketeering (Ihsfiuandian. 1 April 1946). Many traders who operated black-
market enterprises did it in cahoots with the manufacturers, suppliers, or
municipal inspectors appointed to stop such practices (W 26
December 1946). Many general dealers charged double or more for other basic
food (flangaJasiNatal, 15 February 1947). Many in the Indian working class
were suffering as a result of the increased prices. In Cato Manor, Indian workers
would often walk from shack to shack selling the “juicy inside leaves of
cabbagesfi

After work they [Indians] would be around. Some would have gardens but
not many. They were workers and they took the outside leaves for

88

themselves—you know a soup—water and leaves and boil it up with curry.

They would offer us the inside for some money or whatever. (Interview

with T. Shabalala, 31 June 1985; quoted in Edwards, 1989, p. 19)

Both white employers and the City Council reacted unsympathetically.
Many Indian traders appeared more concerned. Some sought the assistance of
the Communist Party to distribute basic foodstuffs at regulated prices (Illa
GuaLdian. 6 July 1946). However, the chaotic conditions in the shops often led
to accusations of overcharging or short-changing. These conflicts were
inevitable and cannot merely be ascribed to traders’ deliberate duplicity.
However, these incidents provided further anti-Indian images which permeated
important aspects of Africans’ daily life (Edwards, 1989, p. 21).

In May 1946, the Communist Party began organizing food raids. The
raids involved entering shops, searching for stockpiled products. and
redistributing them.

Both Indians and Africans participated in this struggle. However, despite
the fact that white traders were also involved in black-market activities, the
campaign centered around Indian traders. There were probably three broad
reasons for this. First, the state was more likely to intervene if white shopowners
were raided. Widespread anti-lndianism among Durban's whites meant that the
state would be less prone to act if only Indian traders were targeted. Second,
Africans and Indians shopped, in the main, at Indian stores. This made
mobilization easier. Third, leaders of the Natal Indian Congress (many of whom
came from the ranks of the Communist Party) sought to use the campaign as a

weapon against traders who supported conservative Indian politicians.

89
For Party members the campaign represented a “people’s revolt.“ The
events of January 1949 were to indicate that
many African participants of the 1949 food campaign were drawing
different conclusions to those reached by Party activists. For many
participants in the campaign the chief benefit was the obtaining of scarce
goods, a short-term gain. A key element in the success of direct action
had been the threatened use of violence. If many drew the lesson that
threats of collective violence were vital to achieving short-term goals,
others would have been influenced by the rejection of legality implicit in
the food campaign. Direct action by ordinary people went beyond
constitutional protest politics and overturned legally entrenched property
relations. (Edwards 8 Nuttall, 1990, p. 11)
What was also apparent was the absence of state intervention because Indian
as opposed to white shops were involved. The “lessons“ of the 1946 food
campaigns were drawn upon in January 1949. Whereas in 1946 the shops were
carefully selected, in 1949 the campaign was shorn of this sort of discipline.
From the 19303, the Indian monopoly was challenged by an increasing
number of aspirant African traders, hoping to take advantage of the rapidly
expanding urban population and rising black real incomes between 1936 and
1947. Unable to raise capital because of property-ownership controls and
coming up against the interests of established licensees, African traders argued
thatthey should have exclusive trading rights over areas occupied predominantly
by Africans (Torr, 1985, pp. 159-162). While this was government policy, African
traders wanted it extended to include shack areas such as Cato Manor. A3
Indian traders moved to block competition from African traders, the latter turned
to anti-Indian rhetoric. This anti-Indianism found resonance among the petty

traders and thousands of consumers. Applications for pedlars’ licenses, and the

development of cooperative schemes, mushroomed in the late 19403.

90

The period 1946 to 1950 was the time of the African cooperative
movement. This movement was different from past attempts. It had distinctly
political overtones. “During the late 19403 African workers saw the cooperatives
not merely as a single element in their everyday lives, but the vital organizational
structure through which they could commence the task of transforming their
economic and political position in the city“ (Edwards, 1989, p. 41).

Two economic principles underpinned the development of the
cooperatives. While the notion of profit was not opposed, it revolved around the
concept of an acceptable profit. This concept led to a militant critique of existing
practices.

Look, ifyou go into an Indian store and want to buy something you know

that you are being cheated. The Indian also has a family and has to live

but so does the African who works there. You knew your brothers were
getting peanuts so you were getting cheated. (Interview with C. Khumalo,

7 July 1985; quoted in Edwards, 1989, p. 42)

The cooperative (it was believed) offered a means of gaining a foothold in the
city’s redistributive cycle of capital.

The second economic principle was that money, goods, and services
should circulate as quickly as possible. “Workers should bring into the
community as much of their salary as possible, and involve themselves in selling
and buying. It was through this cycle of selling and buying that a community of
workers, families and ’unemployed’ would unite“ (Edwards, 1989, p. 43).

The economic dimensions and radical aspects of the cooperative

movement are seen in an article written by a cooperative leader:

As an oppressed group there is a tendency, natural and understandable,
to place too much accent on politics. In a sense this cannot be avoided.

91
The vote, however useful it is, is not everything. There are other powerful
forces at work besides the vote, one of them being economic power. The

man who wields a financial whip is often the master, the ruler, the law.
We therefore congratulate the growth of the Co-operative Movement in

Durban. (flangaJasgNatal, 16 August 1947)

For this cooperative leader, the cooperative movement was “much more
powerful, in membership and accumulated funds, than the Congress“ (flange
mum. 16 August 1947).

“From its inception in the mid-1940’s the popular cooperative movement
had been a distinctively ’African,’ and even more narrowly a ’Zulu’ phenomenon,
drawing racial, national and ethnic boundaries to advance material interests“
(Edwards & Nuttall, 1990, p. 12).

Despite the efforts of African pedlars and cooperatives, Indian-owned
shops in the shack areas and central business district continued to receive
African customage. Indian shops had the attraction of credit bargaining over the
prices, and goods packed in small quantities.

The Indian trader came to be seen as a barrier to African interests. As an
African tearoom proprietor lamented, Indians only bought from Indians:

The next door tea-room is Indian owned. . . . Africans are supposed to

deal with Africans, but Africans go into the shop next door. I can’t

complain because I have an Indian landlord. So I share the Africans with
him. But Indians only buy with him. . . . They are very particular to buy

from their own people. (quoted in Kuper, 1965, p. 293)

African calls for Indian shopowners to employ Africans were ignored.
Indian traders vociferously objected to the granting of sole trading rights to

Africans in African residential areas. “For Africans, the force of ethnic

consciousness in trade was clearly evident“ (Edwards, 1989, p. 38).

92
2.4.4 Iransport

In 1930, the Motor Carrier Transport Act was passed. The Act allowed for
the “coordination and planning of motor transportation“ at the local level, through
the establishment of a Local Transportation Board (LRTB). It was hoped that the
Act would prevent the expansion of small-time private bus operators.

However, rather than curtailing, the Act often strengthened the position of
private operators. The Act enabled the holder of a motor carrier certificate, as
an existing operator, to oppose the application of any would-be new operator
who wanted to secure a certificate on a route which the established operator
already served. The existing operator could also apply for more certificates for
new services which might coordinate with their existing undertakings. The LRTB
vetted applications and heard objections (Torr, 1985, pp. 4-5).

The LTRB could also curtail competition in those areas where there were
no railways. As Stadler (1981) points out, in practice this meant that existing
operators were protected and were greatly advantaged when trying to obtain
more licenses. In Durban this meant the protection of Indian bus operators since
they had established a hegemonic position in the 19203.

In 1930, the Bus Owners’ Association was set up. Membership consisted
of one white and 104 Indian bus owners. No Africans were members. African
ownership in Durban was restricted to four buses.

In the mid-19403, the Durban City Council began trying to control the

African transport system. However, the Bus Owners’ Association successfully

93

frustrated these attempts. The Transport Enquiry Commission set up in the
period reported that

The private operators, through the Bus Owners’ Association, have

vigorously opposed any attempt by the City Council to encroach upon

what they consider to be their rightful preserves in the matter of non-

European passenger transportation, and have been very successful in

their representations to the Local Transportation Board. (The Scott

Baldwin Report, Provincial Notices Nos. 250 and 332, 1945, p. 60)

The City Council found an ally in the aspirant African petit-bourgeoisie.
The latter realized that any attempt to break into the “transportation market“ was
predicated on the breaking of the Indian monopoly.

The attempt by the aspirant petit-bourgeoisie to enter the market was met
with opposition by the Bus Owners’ Association. This created hostility on both
sides. As Torr (1985) notes, the constant refusal to African operators applying
for licenses in favor of incumbent Indian bus operators “created tensions
amongst members of the aspirant petit-bourgeoisie class“ (p. 8). The
superintendent at Lamontville warned in 1948 that “the native population were
now becoming openly hostile to the Indian bus drivers who entered their location“
(quoted in Torr, 1985, p. 8). Torr also points to tensions between Africans and
Indians over the transport issue in other townships and locations. A Women’s
Committee in Clerrnont called for a quota policy to facilitate African enterprise in
the face of entrenched Indian operators. This call was followed by the stoning
of an Indian bus by about 70 women. When two licenses were obtained by

Indians in the late 19403 to serve an almost exclusively African area, it was met

with strong objections. The residents demanded that the municipality or an

African be granted a license (Torr, 1985, p. 20).

 

94

Using the provisions of the Motor Carrier Transportation Act, Indian bus
operators managed to stave off the interventions of the City Council and the
aspirant petit-bourgeoisie. The African working class had to undergo increased
hardship as a result of the monopoly. For example, in Chesterville, a municipal
by—law stopped any private bus service from entering the confines of the
township.

The Act and the Bus Owners’ Association prevented the municipality from

operating bus services to and from the township. The residents of

Chesterville suffered the consequences of an inadequate bus service, as

the buses available to them could only travel to the outskirts of the

township, leaving them to walk the remainder of the way. (Torr, 1985, p.

9)

The service was erratic. On the often overcrowded buses,

the payment and charging of fares was often a disputed business. . . .

Physical violence on the buses was common. Such conditions affected

African and Indian passengers alike, but they were commonly refracted

through a racially-defined lens. (Nuttall, 1989, p. 14)

By the late 19403, the provision of adequate bus facilities had become an
intensely conflictual issue.

Developments in the labor market, housing, trade, and transport
heightened Indian-African tensions. Spanning the entire African community, from

workers to the aspirant African middle class and petty producers of commodities

and services, Indians came to be seen as barriers to their upward mobility.

2.5 II C” [S I' 'II ISIU

The political structure that underpinned state policy from the 19203 was
segregation (Wolpe, 1972, p. 432). The peculiar feature of this policy was the

maintaining of a labor force that was migrant and temporary, returning to the

95
Reserves in between periods of work and retaining the means of production in
the African economy or having claim to such means. The exploitation of migrant
labor-power of this kind enabled the capitalist sector to secure an increased rate
of surplus value. How is this effected?

When the migrant laborer has access to a means of subsistence outside
the capitalist sector, as he has in South Africa, then the relationship between
wages and the cost of the production and reproduction of labor-power is
changed. That is to say, capital is able to pay the worker below the cost of his
reproduction. In determining the level of wages necessary for the subsistence
of the migrant worker and his family, account is taken of the fact that his family
is supported, to some extent, from the product of agricultural production in the
Reserves. It becomes possible to fix wages at the level of subsistence of the
individual worker. The extended family in the Reserves is able to fulfill “social
security“ functions necessary for the reproduction of the migrant work force. By
caring for the very old, the sick, and the migrant laborer in periods of “rest,“ and
by educating the young and so on, the Reserve families relieve the capitalist
sector and the State from the need to expend resources on these necessary
functions (Wolpe, 1972, pp. 434-435).

In the early period of capitalist development in South Africa (the period of
gold mining), the Reserve economy provided the major portion of Africans
employed in capitalist production at any given moment, with supplementary
subsistence and was thus a crucial condition of the reproduction of the migrant

working class. The crucial function thus performed by the policy of segregation

96
was to maintain the productive capacity of the pre-capitalist economies and the
social system of the African societies in order to ensure that these societies
provided a portion of the means of reproduction of the migrant working class.

Through a combination of factors there emerged a decline in the
productive capacity of the pre-capitalist economies. This resulted in a decrease
in the agricultural product of the Reserves, which meant that the contribution of
the Reserves towards the subsistence necessary forthe reproduction ofthe labor
force was diminished. This threatened to reduce the rate of surplus value
through pressure on wages and posed, for capital, the problem of preventing a
fall in the level of profit.

The system of producing a cheap migrant labor force generated rural
impoverishment, while at the same time it enabled extremely low wages to be
paid to Africans in the capitalist sector. But increasing rural impoverishment,
since it removes that portion of the industrial workers’ subsistence which is
produced and consumed in the Reserves, also intensifies urban poverty. This
two-fold effect of capitalist development has the potential to generate conflict, not
only over wages, but also over all other aspects of urban and rural life. Clearly,
the nature, form, and extent of actual conflicts generated by structural conditions
will depend not only upon the measures of state control but on the complex
conjuncture of political ideologies and organization, trade unions, the cohesion
of the dominant sector, and so on. Although these may vary, what is stressed
here is the tendency for these stnIctural conditions which center on the system

of cheap labor to generate conflicts (Wolpe, 1972, p. 444).

97

The Second World War produced a period of very rapid economic growth
in South Africa; it saw massive expansion of industrial production, and the period
also saw a rapid influx of Africans into the urban areas. The degeneration of the
rural economy contributed to this surge into the urban areas. Despite a large
group of workers having no agricultural subsidy to their wages, the state
Increased its efforts during the 19403 to force African workers to maintain their
rural ties through proclamations requiring rural residents to return regularly to
keep up their rights to land, through the establishment of “villages“ for the
landless, and also through the operation of the Urban Areas Act. This Act made
it extremely difficult for African people not born in the urban areas to qualify for
residence. Despite these regulations and policies, this period saw an
acceleration in the number of African workers who brought their families to the
urban areas and demanded the rights to urban working-class residence and a
level of wages to the cost of the reproduction of their labor in urban conditions
(Hemson, 1979, p. 342).

African workers struggling to maintain themselves and their families in
urban conditions were under pressure from Native Administration officials,
landowners threatening eviction, and declining real wages. They responded with
militant struggles in the workplace and the community. Strike action increased,
and thousands of African workers participated in squatters’ movements and bus
boycotts. There were militant rural struggles at Witzieshoek and in the Transkei

(Davies, O’Meara, & Dlamini, 1984. Pp. 17-18). These were some of the signs

98
of the growing assault on the whole society (and the structure of cheap labor
power which underpinned it) which confronted the state in 1948.

In Durban, social services in black areas were largely ignored for the
simple reason that white ratepayers alone were enfranchised. According to the
prevailing ideology ofStaIlardism, all Africans were “temporary sojoumers" in the
white man’s city, and small groups of Indian municipal voters that had existed
had been disenfranchised in 1924. Stallard had led a Commission which
reported in 1922 that the towns were the white man’s preserve and that “the
native should only be allowed to enter the urban areas, which are essentially the
white man’s creation, when he is willing to enter and to minister to the needs of
the white man, and should depart therefrom when he ceases to minister" (quoted
in Davenport, 1969, p. 95).

In 1948, of the total African city population of 150,000 persons, there
existed licensed municipal, Union Government, private employer and private
nonemployer, and African-owned accommodation for 82,700 people. This
accommodation was both incapable of satisfying the existing demand and the
expected increase in the African population of the city (Durban Housing Survey).

By the late 19403, there was official single accommodation for 654 African
women in the Thokoza Municipal Hostel in Grey Street. The hostel was totally
overcrowded and unhealthy. Facilities and conditions in the municipal and South
African Railways and Harbour Services male hostels were possibly more

unsatisfactory than conditions at Thokoza. Officially, the Somtseu Road Men’s

99

Hostel could accommodate 4,456 people, but there were often up to 13,000
people crowded into the hostel (Durban Housing Survey, pp. 324-336).

In 1948, it was estimated that, of the total African population of Durban,
67,300 people had no official accommodation. Some lived in the backyard
hovels in and around Durban, while the remainder lived in the shantytown
sprawls. By the late 19403, the densest, most popular area of shantytown
settlement was in the Mkhumbane‘ area of Cato Manor Farm (Edwards, 1989,
pp. 119-120).

In 1951, the average African family was estimated at 2.7 persons, while
the average density of the Cato Manor Farm shantytown dwellings was 8.8
persons per shack. With regard to the provision of health facilities in African
residential areas, it was openly admitted that municipal, provincial, and Union
government health services had, to all intents and purposes, broken down
(Broome Commission, memorandum to the Durban City Council, Chapter 3). For
Africans moving between such residential areas and their places of work and
other locales within the city, the transport system had long been inadequate. By
the late 19403, employers, among others, were calling for drastic changes to the
local road transportation network as it affected African commuter traffic. Also, by
the late 19403, there were only 282 municipal-, Indian-, or African-owned buses
available for African passengers, the two main African bus ranks, Warwick

Avenue Market and Dalton Road, being overcrowded and disorganized

 

‘Mkhumbane was the name Africans in Durban used to refer to Cato Manor.

100
(Industrial Employers Association, Natal Section, Annual Report1949-1950; Torr,
1985).

As late as 1948, a City Council Commission under Justice Broome had
reported on appalling conditions in the locations and had recommended the
immediate rehousing of 23,000 shack-dwellers as a matter of “social urgency.“
The Council disregarded this message of the high probability of social tension.
The Council was aware that Durban's white ratepayers would not be prepared
to foot the bill for rehousing. As long as the locations and compounds provided
docile cheap labor, they were serving their function. Besides, although the
Council had assumed formal control of these locations in 1931 when the
municipal boundaries had been extended, they had never established any kind
of de facto control, and these locations had developed their own subsystems to
exercise social control. When order did break down the weekend of the riots, it
was a case of the police and army establishing control in these areas for the first
time rather than a case of their attempting to reestablish their authority.

The policy of segregation was in tatters by the end of the 19403. The
policy had generated rural impoverishment and intensified urban poverty. Forced
into the margins of the city, Africans tenaciously hung onto the shantytowns as
it was their only means of maintaining a toehold in the urban areas. Both the
local and national state displayed an incapacity to deal with the surge of Africans
into the cities.

Africans did not accept the appalling urban conditions passively. Where

there was scope for leverage, African communities were quick to attempt either

101
to resist increased subsistence costs or to reduce the price of survival. In
Johannesburg, the Alexandra bus boycotts of 1940 and 1945 and the squatters’
movement of 1944 to 1947 stand out as epic mass stmggles with the City
- Council (Lodge, 1985, pp. 13-15). In Durban, conflict was to take a different
form.

The ruling United Party failed to develop a coherent alternative plan to
segregation that could appeal to the white electorate. Originally formed in 1934
to organize together all sections of capital, it tried to appease all conflicting
demands and adopted vacillating and extremely contradictory politics. The
National Party was able to use the political space afforded by a political alliance
under the banner of a militant Afrikaner nationalist ideology that ushered in the
policy of apartheid.

2.6 W
W

The policy of apartheid developed as a response to this urban and rural
challenge to the system. Within its framework, apartheid combined both
institutionalizing and Iegitimating mechanisms and overwhelmingly coercive
measures. At the most general level, that of control of the African political
challenge, apartheid entailed the removal of the limited rights that Africans and
“coloreds“ had in the Parliamentary institutions of the White State; the revision
of old and the introduction of a whole complex of new repressive laws which
made illegal militant organized opposition—security police, the Bureau of State

Security, the army, and police and army reserves. In the economic sphere,

102
measures were introduced to prevent or contain the accumulation of pressure on
the level of wages.

With regard to labor, the National Party government enacted a variety of
measures to maintain the circulation of African labor between the reserves and
wage labor and to provide a basis for “rural urbanization.“ Amendments were
made to African labor legislation to encourage a more efficient migrant labor
system. Labor bureaus were established to direct the supply of labor, and tribal
government was strengthened to reinforce controls over the industrial army of
labor (Hemson, 1979, p. 356).

Black peOpIe responded to the apartheid onslaught with militant action.
In 1949, the ANC adapted a new radical “Program of Action," which set out a
policy of mass action, boycotts, strikes, and civil disobedience. This was
followed in 1952 by the Defiance Campaign. Although the Defiance Campaign
was eventually broken, it did have a number of positive political effects. It led to
closer cooperation between the ANC and other political organizations, especially
the Natal and Transvaal Indian Congress (NIC and TIC). This created the
conditions for the establishment of the Congress alliance and the series of mass
mobilizing activities culminating in the adoption of the Freedom Charter in 1955.
At the same time, the formation of the South African Congress of Trade Unions
(SACTU) in 1955 brought a greater level of unity to the struggle of militant trade
unions (Davies et al., 1984, p. 26).

The widespread mobilization spearheaded by the Congress Alliance had

its effects on the economy. The manufacturing industry, suffering from the

103

ravages of a militant workforce and the importation of cheap manufactured
goods, “Iurched from instability in the early 19503 into decline and ultimately
crisis“ (Innes, 1984, p. 173). By 1959, industrial output recorded a negative
growth rate of 1.4% compared to a growth rate of 7.2% in 1954. Capital took
fright and began to flee the country. By the end of 1960, South Africa faced a
balance-of-payment crisis more severe than any experienced since 1932 (Innes,
1984, p. 173).

Faced by this mounting crisis, the state moved decisively into the
economic and political spheres.

Import controls were intensified, the bank rate was raised, foreign

exchange facilities reduced, restrictions placed on the commercial banks’

stock exchange dealings and, most important of all, in June 1961 the

“Blocked Rand“ system came into being (placing restriction both on the

repatriation of capital by non-South African residents and on the

remittance of funds abroad by South African residents). The effect of
these combined measures was that by the end of 1961 a favorable
balance of payments position (of R86m) had been achieved and by

February 1962 the foreign exchange and gold reserves had recovered to

over R316m. (Innes, 1984, p. 73)

At the same time, the state launched a campaign of sustained repression
that resulted in the banning of the ANC and PAC and the effective crushing of
black political resistance by 1963. The NIC, TIC, and SACTU, while not banned,
were forced out of existence by the sheer weight of repression.

The crushing of political resistance ushered in the next phase of apartheid.
This was marked by a ten-year uninterrupted boom. The immensity of the
economic boom was indicated by the fact that, while the GDP increased by 5.2%

between 1957 and 1962, it jumped to 9.3% between 1963 and 1968 (Innes,
1984, p. 188).

104

It was during this period that the state promoted advisory bodies for
Indians and “coloreds.“ The role of the Bantustans changed. They became
increasingly the dumping grounds for those workers made superfluous by the
rapid mechanization of industry and agriculture. The Bantustans also began to
assume a political role. In response to the demand for political rights for all, the
Bantustans were to be prepared for “self-govemment“ and eventual
“independence.“ The African masses were to be told that political rights would
be granted to them but only on a tribal basis in one of the ten so-called ethnic
“homelands.“

It was during this period that the policy of separate development was
consolidated. The Group Areas Act was used to remove “black spots“ in the
white areas and strict racial residential separation came into being. Political
aspirations of Indians and “coloreds“ were to be met through advisory bodies and
those of Africans within the Bantustans. Underpinning all this was a
sophisticated state apparatus.

From the 19503, there was a greater centralization of power with regard
to urban policy. The central state increasingly took upon itself the task of
regulating the presence of Africans in urban areas in accordance with
government policy. At the same time as this process of centralization was
occurring, controls over the presence of Africans in urban areas were steadily
being tightened. Stricter influx control was to be the chief mechanism for

achieving this. The measures were implemented with much zeal. For instance,

105
prosecutions under the pass laws increased from a total of about 280,200 in
1951 to about 631,300 in 1970 (Savage, 1986, pp. 194-195).

Hindson (1983) has argued that influx control after 1952 was simply not
designed to enforce temporary migration. It also aimed to stabilize a section of
the urban African proletariat, thereby reinforcing the differentiation between
migrants and those with more permanent (Section 10) urban rights. This
stabilization went hand in hand with another dimension of the state’s attempt to
tighten control over urban Africans—its housing policy.

State housing policies in the 19503 were designed to “remove black
freehold rights in these areas, segregate the races, control movement and
reduce the economic burden of blacks on the state and on local authorities“
(Morris, 1981, p. 69). The principle of residential segregation was entrenched
and rigidified in the 1950 Group Areas Act. The principle was put into practice
with the construction of vast African townships. According to the “ideal,“ these
townships were to be sited as far as possible from white residential areas, but
reasonably close to industrial areas. Spatial segregation was to be reinforced by
buffer zones and by natural or other barriers. And townships were to be
designed and sited in such a way that they could be cordoned off in the event of
a riot or rebellion, and the resistance suppressed in open streets (Maylam, 1990,
pp. 69-70).

The combination of economic growth and repression facilitated a period

of “social peace“ as compared to the 19403 and 19503. It was during this period

106
that the policy of apartheid was consolidated. However, by the mid-19703 the

wheels were to start to come off.

2.7 W
Bell (1983) has pointed out that the South African labor market is

unusually rigidly segmented on a regional basis, and each region has a

distinctive racial structure (p. 26) (see Table 4).

Table 4

Racial Composition of Manufacturing Employment in
the Main Industrial Regions (%)

 

 

 

 

Region Whites Asians Coloreds Africans
Cape Peninsula 16.5 1.5 68.8 13.2
Durban 13.5 32.6 4.2 50.0
PWV Region 30.4 1.3 6.2 62.0

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: Bell, 1983, p. 25.

As Table 4 shows, the colored proportion of the labor force is substantially
higher in the Cape Peninsula than the Asian proportion in Durban-Pinetown.
Indeed, the Durban-Pinetown region is unique in the country as a whole in that,
in addition to the white component of its population, it has both a substantial
proportion of Asians and a high proportion of Africans. By contrast, the Cape has
a higher proportion of coloreds but a very small proportion of Africans; and the
PWV region has the highest proportion of whites but also, among the three

metropolitan centers, the largest proportion of Africans.

107
Table 5 shows that the period 1959-60 to 1976 was characterized by a

general tendency for the proportion of Asian workers to increase.

Table 5

Racial Composition of the Labor Force:
Durban-Pinetown, 1960-1976 (%)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Date Whites Asians Africans
1959-60 20.2 31.0 48.8
1967-68 16.9 35.2 47.9
1970 15.3 36.3 48.8
1972 14.2 35.5 50.3
1976 13.5 36.7 50. 3

 

 

 

 

 

Source: Bell, 1983, p. 37; figures for coloreds were included
with those of Asians.

The proportion of Indian workers increased from 31.0% in 1959-60 to
36.7% In 1976. African workers increased from 48.8% in 1959-60 to 50.3% in
1976. This increase in the African workforce was not accompanied by any
reduction in the share of Indians in manufacturing employment in the region.
There was also a general tendency for Asian workers to move upwards into more
skilled occupations in the job hierarchy. Bell (1983) found that, in comparison
with colored workers, who compete directly with and substitute for Africans rather
than whites in the Cape Peninsula, Asians are in much more direct competition

with whites than with Africans.

108
An important factor in the Asian propensity for upward mobility was that
the level of educational attainment of the economically active Asian population

was substantially higher than that of the other black groupings, as Table 6

 

 

 

 

 

 

indicates.
Table 6
Eduwtional Attainment of the Economically Active
Population of South Africa, 1981 (%)
Education Whites Asians Coloreds Africans
No education 0.1 1.1 13.6 40.5
Primary 1.5 23.6 45.7 43.9
Standard 6 to 9 51.3 59.4 37.2 14.9
Standard 10 30.3 10.1 2.2 0.5
Degrees 8 diploma 16.8 5.8 1.3 0.2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: Bell, 1983, p. 54.

The structure of educational attainment of Asians was indeed closest to
that of whites in 1981. While 10.1% of Asians had a Standard 10 education, only
2.2% of coloreds and 0.5% of Africans had reached the same level.

In the Durban-Pinetown area, it was Asians who penetrated the semi-
skilled, technical, and nonmanual levels of the occupational hierarchy. Africans
continued to predominate at the lower ends of the occupational hierarchy and

suffered heavily as the economy contracted.

109

Indians continued to hold a significant proportion of trading in the Durban

area, as Table 7 shows.

Table 7

The Number of Trading Licenses Held, by Race, in Durban, 1950-1975

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whites Indians Africans
Year Total
Actual % Actual % Actual %
1950 7.870 50.95 7.044 45.60 533 3.45 15.447
1955 9.617 53.83 7.728 43.26 519 2.91 17,869
1960 10,817 54.88 8,297 42.10 597 3.02 19,711
1963 10,913 53.75 8,661 42.65 731 3.60 20,305
1975 12,191 56.44 8,834 40.90 572 2.66 21,597

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: Arkin, 1981, p. 293.

The press often highlights tales of success stories, workers who became
entrepreneurs, such as F. Reddy, once a factory machinist. By 1982, he was the
proprietor of a clothing factory with 600 workers (W, 1982
supplement). Mr. Moodley of Pietermaritzburg had, by that year, been able to
advance in life from foreman to factory manager to shoe factory owner (P_ost
Suoolemem, 16 November 1983). Sylvia Singh, a machinist made redundant in
1977, borrowed machines, got space from her old boss, and with an advance
and cheap vinyl, began the successful manufacture of luggage (Fiat Lux, VI(5),
1982).

110

In manufacturing, the proportions of Indian ownerships, partnerships, and
private companies all increased over the period 1959-60 to 1976. For the first
two categories, the proportion grew from 12% to 14% of the white number. For
private companies the proportion increased from 1.7% to 2.5%. Although the
number of Indian-owned companies was very small by comparison to those
owned by whites, Indians owned 86.5% of all non-white-owned private
companies in 1976 (Arkin, 1989, p. 64).

In the 19403, the Indian merchant was the most visible part of the Indian
community. It was the merchant who came to define lndo-African relations
because of the particular form that the interaction took. Beyond the merchant
class and those who found stable jobs as semi-skilled operatives in the
manufacturing industry, manylndians experienced extremely harsh and insecure
living conditions. In 1943-44, more than 70% of Indians were estimated living at
or below the poverty datum line, whereas 40% were so poor they could be called
destitute (Ginwala, 1974, p. 303). In the 19403, tuberculosis was still prevalent
among the Indian working class. Diets were sparse, malnutrition was a serious
issue, and most families were in debt. The Magazine Barracks, home to
thousands of Indian municipal employees, opened in 1880. Before the First
World War, it was condemned by the municipality as being not fit for human
occupation, but it continued to exist for another half century. Conditions for
railway workers and life in their barracks were as bad. Unemployment was

endemic even in the best years the economy experienced (Freund, 1991b).

1 11

By the 19803, the Indian working class had carved a greater space for
itself in the greater Durban economy. It had secured itself a mid-level in the
occupational hierarchy. By 1973, over 30% of Indian workers in manufacturing
were estimated to be supervisors, artisans, or apprentices (Freund, 1991b).
Unemployment had declined considerably. One report on the Indian labor supply
in 1978 estimated that unemployment in the potentially economically active labor
force was 3.3% for those over 25 and 5.5% if the 15-25 age group was included
in the count. The merchant also continued to retain a significant place in
Durban’s economy.

WIth the economy growing rapidly in the 19603 and the black resistance
movement in disarray, the state was well placed to implement the policies of
apartheid. Central to these policies were the provisions of the Group Areas Act,
which was used as a basis for the implementation of a comprehensive system
of racial zoning (see Map 3). Indians were hard hit by the Group Areas Act, as

Table 8 illustrates.

Table 8

The Number of Families Disqualified by the Group Areas Act,
by Race: 1950-1972

 

 

 

 

 

Race No. of Families No. of Families to No. of Families
Resettled Be Resettled DIsquaIIfied
White 1,513 135 1,648
Colored 44,855 27,538 72,393
Indian 27,694 10,641 38,335

 

 

 

 

 

Source: Arkin, 1984, p. 234.

112

 

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1 13

By 31 December 1972, 1,513 white, 44,855 colored, and 27,694 Indian
families had been moved countrywide. By 1974, the Ministry of Community
Development estimated that a total of 41,782 Indian families had been
disqualified, some 276,000 people (Schlemmer, 1967).

One of the fundamental objectives of the Group Areas Act was to curb
Indian trading. “The question of Asiatic traders in rural areas, very often in areas
carrying a large native population, is causing much concern. There is no doubt
that there are too many such traders and that their numbers should be reduced“
(Report of the van der Merwe Commission, U.G. 49/50).

Numerous commentators have pointed out how Indian traders suffered
under the Group Areas Act (Arkin, 1981; Maasdorp 8 Pillay, 1977). Maasdorp
and Pillay found, in their fieldwork on the effects of the Group Areas Act, that it
caused “considerable bitterness“ In the Indian community (p. 169).

While not wanting to minimize the horrendous effects of the Group Areas
Act and the psychological damage of apartheid, Indians clearly benefited during
the apartheid years. They began more distinctively to resemble a middleman
minority, albeit it taking a different form to Bonacich’s model. Bonacich did not
account for a middleman minority extending its role beyond trade with
subordinate groups and coming to occupy a middleman position in the industrial
sector dominated by white ownership.

Within the African community, a growing number of people enjoyed
mobility and enlargement of their earning and spending capacity. From about

1973, African employment in the areas such as personnel relations, clerical and

1 14

design departments, foreman and supervisory positions increased. While mainly
employed in junior positions, it did mean increased status and income for some.
Sitas (1986) found In a sample of companies in the monopoly sector of Durban’s
economy that while only 2% of African employees held the above positions in the
19603, by the 19803 the figure had grown to 10% (pp. 99-100). This group was
joined by those who found employment in the enlarged state bureaucracies and
urban homeland authority structures since the 1960s. Also. an expanding trader
class found rich pickings in the racially exclusive market of the townships under
the patronage of the KwaZulu government.

Probably the most striking feature of the economic structure of the African
community was the growing unemployment and increasing poverty. The
economic downswing beginning in the mid-19703 had a disastrous impact on
Durban’s African community. Between 1982 and 1985, there was a reduction of
Durban’s labor force by 20%. A 1983 selected sample of leading firms in each
of Durban’s industrial sectors showed dramatic cutbacks in employment. In
many other firms, although levels of employment remained constant, large
numbers of workers were put on short-time, which decreased earnings (Sitas,
1986, p. 99).

This growing unemployment was accompanied by the rapid spread of
poverty. Youth unemployment spiraled, exacerbating the already intolerable
living conditions in the townships. Sitas (1986) points to a study on youth
unemployment that noted that “if for years no new entrants on the labor market

were employed, iffurthermore the young workers in employment were the first

1 15
to go, then . . . there Is a pressing suspicion that the interrelationship between
black youth, unemployment and underemployment is high“ (p. 100). The study
concluded that economic crisis had created a bitter generation of young
unemployed people. Even those in employment oscillated from enforced casual
labor in industry to the lower rungs of the grading hierarchies—to be laid off first,
due to lack of experience (Sitas, 1986, p. 100).

Now that the economic structure of the Indian and African communities
has been laid out, we need to turn to political developments. First, we need to
focus on shopfloor relations between Indians and Africans. It was in this arena
that many activists in the trade union and wider progressive movement felt a

united working class cutting across racial divides could be forged.

2.8 WM

Carrim (1986) conducted 59 unstructured interviews with organizers and
shop stewards of a cross-section of emergent and established trade unions in
Natal in the early 19803. This was done in order to develop an understanding of
the relationship between Indian and African workers.

In looking at day-to-day relations, most of the African shop stewards felt
that Indians were “very different“ and pointed to cultural differences. They saw
Indian workers as clannlsh in their relationships with Africans. Indian shop
stewards also said that the Indian workers brought up the 1949 riots. Some of
the African shop stewards thought that Indians were afraid of them: “They still

got that. . . we can turn around against them. They are not free with us all the

116
time. We are free. . . . They still got that . . . you know, we can attack them“
(Carrim, 1986, p.55).

When shop stewards from progressive unions were asked whythere were
not more Indians In their unions, they pointed to the racial division of labor as the
central obstacle. They said that Indians are more skilled and better paid and
“nearer to management,“ so they did not feel the need to join unions, or at least
did not see enough in common with lower-skilled African workers to belong to the
same unions as they did. Where Indian workers belonged to unions, they
seemed to prefer company unions or the established unions which did not
confront management (Carrim, 1986, p. 46).

Many shop stewards thought that management deliberately fostered the
racial division of labor. For example, it was pointed out that Indians were put “on
staff“ and paid monthly, while Africans were paid weekly. Marie (1986), in her
research, found similar examples of bosses encouraging workers to see each
other in racial terms. For example, management offered only Indian workers
transport on a daily basis (p. 116). Many of Carrim’s (1986) interviews pointed
to management intimidation of Indian workers if they wanted to join unions:
“Management is putting a fright in the Indian workers from joining the union. l
have seen that. They want tojoin the union—but can’t, because of management“
(p. 47). This, though, still begs the questionuwhy should Indian workers be more
easily intimidated than African workers? Part of the answer must be attributed
to the fact that Indian workers in general have much more to lose, with their

betterjobs and better pay. But also, because they are “nearer the management,“

1 17
they are probably more susceptible to its influence. They are more vulnerable,
too, because they generally occupy an intermediate position, not just on the
shopfloor but in some respects in wider society as well.

Coming into the 19803, many Indian workers shunned the emergent
progressive trade union movement and retained membership in the conservative
Trade Union Council of South Africa (T UCSA).

It Is important now to look at political forces organizing in the Indian and

African communities.

2.92l'l'lD 'l' .” II' C 'I

In 1964 the government set up the South African Indian Council (SAIC).
In 1981 it became a fully elected body but continued to have purely advisory
powers. In 1981, there was a massive boycott of the elections.5 The SAIC
came to espouse the interests of the Indian merchants. The strategy of the SAIC
was to win concessions from the Indian trader class by emphasizing their
acceptance of residential separation. Thus, Councilor A. M. Rajab was to state
in October 1970 that

the Group Areas Act was fundamentally designed to separate the races

residentially in order to remove friction. To this the Indians have no

objections. The Act, however, goes far beyond its original purpose and

deprives hundreds of Indian traders of their livelihood on the grounds

presumably that their presence created the possibilities of racial friction.
(SAIC Memorandum, October 1970)

 

5For history of the SAIC, see Desai (1987).

118

Also, many in the SAIC preferred supporting the South African
government because of a fear of majority rule. Thus, the chairperson of the
SAIC in 1972, H. E. Joosub, argued that

[we] have to consider the several bloody riots in Natal . . . when large

numbers of Indians were killed in Bantu fury. Forthose and other reasons

we are not impressed by arguments used by expatriate organizations that
we are stooges and that we should not in any way co-operate with the

government. (p. 424)

Clearly, many of the merchants in the SAIC benefited from the sheltered
markets provided by separate development, which meant, in the words of Joosub
(1972), “apartheid is not always bad, however, much of the word may be used
as a term of abuse against South Africa“ (p. 424).

In 1984, the SAIC was replaced by the House of Delegates (HOD), a
constituent of the tricameral parliament. The HOD continued the old SAIC tactic
of attempting to win concessions by expressing allegiance to the National Party.

The other main strand existing in Indian politics was the Natal Indian
Congress (NIC). The NIC rejected participation in government structures and
sought political unity with the African majority. The NIC led the campaign to
boycott the 1981 SAIC elections. However, it failed to develop a mass base and
its politics remained reactive.

Despite its supposed nonracial nature, the NIC continually emphasized
in its discourse its commitment to the “Indian peOple,“ “our community,“ “our
people.“ For the NIC, the Indian community was a self-contained unit engaged

in alliance politics with other communities (Singh 8 Vawda, 1988, p. 13). Thus,

for Yacoob (1983), an NIC executive member,

119

that there are lndians, coloreds, Africans and whites (national groups) in

our country is a self-evident and undeniable reality. It is a reality precisely

because each of those national groups has its own heritage, culture,

language, customs and traditions. (p. 7)

Since the State structured domination along racial and ethnic lines, the
NIC’s struggles involved mobilizing the Indian people against the State’s actions.
Nonracial action was limited, and when it occurred it was limited to interaction at
the leadership level.

What the NIC and SAIC did contribute to was the “homogenization“ of the
Indian community. This process was also facilitated by the State’s creation from
the 19603 of large, exclusively Indian working-class suburbs in Durban. Indian

working-class consciousness came to be bound with the future of these

communities. Here community came to be defined in class and racial terms.

2.10 African Eolilical Organizations

Inkatha was re-formed in 1975 to consolidate the power base of Chief
Buthelezi and his supporters in the KwaZulu Legislative Assembly (KLA) and to
create Zulu unity on the basis of refusing independence but participating in the
system of homeland government. For Inkatha, Zulus were a single nation,
among other nations in South Africa. lnkatha’s discourse emphasized Zulu
dignity and the promise of cultural liberation. Often this Zulu nationalism was
couched In an anti-lndianism (Mare 8 Hamilton, 1987).

Inkatha was able to develop a support base through a series of patronage
systems. Traders, in order to ensure access to the lucrative racially exclusive

markets of the townships, needed the support of the Inkatha-dominated advisory

120

boards and local councils. A bureaucratic petit-bourgeoisie of civil servants
came to rely on homeland self-govemment for employment. In the hostels it
exercised influence through patronage mediated by councilors and indunas.6
Support was not only gained through patronage. Inkatha’s revival of ancestral
rituals, local justice systems, and the attempt to reinvigorate traditional familial
relationships and discipline all had their own particular appeal to the urban
proletariat. This appeal was facilitated by the factthat a significant number of the
proletariat had active links with the rural areas (Schlemmer, 1985). Many were
also newly urbanized, having entered the labor market in the 19603 for the first
time. This went some way towards “explaining the stubborn survival of cultural
formations, symbolism, and ideologies that betray(ed) a continuum between the
country and city“ (Sitas, 1986, p. 93).

However, Inkatha failed to develop a local leadership in the townships.
By the early 19803, its working-class support had no home in an Inkatha-aligned
trade union movement. These factors contributed to its support being
ephemeral. Its brutal suppression of the 1980 schools boycott had also alienated
many in the townships. Inkatha orientation was to ensure stability in the
townships. To this end, it opposed all forms of mass action. This meant it was
always Janus-faced: part liberatory, part repressive.

By the early 19803, the Federation of South African Trade Unions

(FOSATU) emerged as the dominant trade union grouping in the region. Unlike

 

°Indunas-—councilor or headman appointed by a chief; African foreman of any
band of workers.

121
the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) in the 19503, it chose an
independent path and emphasized point-of-production organization based on
shop steward leadership. It refrained from links with the black petit-bourgeoisie
and community-oriented struggles.
Resident associations and student organizations existed with pockets of
support in the African townships. It was the United Democratic Front, formed in

1983, that was to bring these groupings under one banner.

2.11 IheJlDEantheBuildingoLNonradalism

The UDF brought together all organizations, associations, and groups that
were readyto oppose the State’s reform policy on a popular democratic platform.
There were two notable absentees from the Front—Inkatha and FOSATU.

The UDF led the opposition to the tricameral elections. However, the
campaign remained an essentially NIC one. Because the HOD was directed at
the Indian community, the UDF organized Indian opposition. Its appeals were
couched in a language that appealed to the “Indian community.“ We see here
how the State is able to compartmentalize opposition despite the best intentions
of political organizations.

Beyond the opposition to the elections to the HOD, the UDF initiated no
other mass action in Durban. Energy was directed at a national level, and the
UDF “did not develop a coherent grassroots approach to consolidate its base.
On the ground rather it and its affiliates became increasingly involved in conflict
with Inkatha“ (Sitas, 1986, p. 103). Alongside worsening relations with Inkatha,

by 1985 the distance between the UDF and the unions had increased.

122
Most crucially, the launch of the UDF facilitated the beginnings of the
comrades movement in Natal. Consisting of school pupils, young unemployed
and employed people (under 35), they were at the helm of political struggle

throughout the insurrection years of 1984 to 1986.

2.12 W
By the mid-19703, the economic boom of the 19603 had petered out and

was replaced by an acute economic recession. The period also saw a
heightening of mass struggle on a number of fronts—armed struggle, the trade
unions, and struggle by community, women’s, students’, and other organizations.
The 1973 strikes and the 1976 uprising were probably the key events leading to
the eventual near collapse of the main pillars of urban apartheid in the 19803.

By the early 19803, the level of control over urban Africans was
weakening. The military came to replace municipal officials and Administration
Board personnel as the agents of control in many townships.

Maylam (1990) points to the growth of shack settlements around the major
urban areas in the 19803 as a further symptom of the weakening of state control
(p. 81). Housing represented a form of control in itself. In the 19403, shack
settlements had mushroomed in South African cities. From the 19503, the state
began to clear these uncontrolled zones by moving their occupants into newly
built townships. In the 19803, there was a return again to the situation of the
19403, although on a much larger scale. The state had lost control of the black
housing situation, and in the process another pillar in the urban apartheid edifice

began to crumble.

123

The fiscal base of urban apartheid also began to weaken. This had
implications for the structures of co-option and collaboration. In 1977 the state
passed the Community Councils Act. In contrast to their predecessors, the
Community Councils were given some powers; the allocation of accommodations
and trading sites and the maintenance of essential services were the most
important ones. But the position of the Community Councils was severely
circumscribed. Their powers were subject to the will and decisions of the
minister. There was an uncertain division of power between the Community
Councils and the Administration Boards. The fiscal base of the Councils was
weak as employer levies and liquor profits still went to the Administration Boards.
And the Councils, which tended to be dominated by businessmen and traders
pursuing their own interests, lacked any real popular legitimacy, especially in the
larger urban areas where council election polls often fell below 10% (Maylam,
1990, p. 83).

Community organizations also opposed the black local authorities. During
June 1977, the Soweto Council and the Council at Dobsonville on the West Rand
stopped operating when the majority of members resigned as a result of pressure
from community organizations (Survey of Race Relations, 1977, p. 5). In 1980,
community councils came under further attack from the mass protests centered
around rent campaigns and education boycotts. So strong were these protests
by the mid-19803 that yet another pillar in the urban apartheid edifice began to

collapse.

124

Alongside this, the whole system of influx control was beginning to
collapse. Influx control was a key mechanism for trying to realize the
contradictory objectives of the State: the need to secure a suitable supply of
labor while minimizing the presence of Africans in urban areas. It was a
contradictory objective, calling for both the inclusion and exclusion of urban
Africans. Maylam (1990) points out that there was a much more fundamental
contradiction to the system of influx control (p. 72). The increasing displacement
of the “surplus“ urban population to the bantustans exacerbated overcrowding
and poverty in those rural areas. This, in turn, put pressure on people to defy
influx control by moving to urban areas, where there was a better chance of
subsisting.

The state responded to the urban crisis with the Riekert Report in 1979.
The Riekert Report represented a shift from strict Verwoerdian ideology by
recognizing the right of urban Africans to remain in cities and towns of white
South Africa. Riekert (cited in Hindson, 1987) argued that de facto permanence
be acknowledged in law, not merely through administrative fiat (p. 83). This
permanent proletariat would constitute a class of “urban insiders“ who would be
given preferential access to employment and housing. At the same time, stricter
control would be exercised over the “outsiders,“ those without permanent urban
rights (Maylam, 1990, p. 80).

However, Hindson (1987) has pointed out that attempts to implement the
Riekert recommendations from 1979 to 1984 all met with failure.

The strategic aim of strengthening the division between urban and rural
Africans was not achieved. The five years following the publication of the

125

Riekert Report, and especially the period of recession since mid-1982,
witnessed the dramatic surfacing of structural conditions underlying
territorial apartheid. The period was characterized by a deepening crisis
of bantustan legitimacy, the exposure of desperate rural poverty, the flight
of impoverished Africans from the countryside to the cities and the
mushrooming of peri-urban squatter settlements inside and outside the
bantustans. (p. 85)
The ultimate tendency was for the whole system to break down.

In Durban the general state policy was to facilitate the incorporation of
African townships into KwaZulu. In early 1977, KwaZulu was declared a self-
goveming territory, and KwaMashu was incorporated into the bantustan shortly
thereafter. In August 1973, administration of African townships passed from the
Durban City Council to the newly constituted Port Natal Administration Board
(PNAB)-one of 22 Bantu Affairs Administration Boards (BAABs) created
throughout South Africa. In April 1984, the PNAB was succeeded by the Natalia
Development Board (NDB).

State policy in the early 19803 was to “encourage“ urban Africans living
in “while“ areas to relocate to the bantustans through a comprehensive
bantustan “development“ program. This program, according to Booth and Biyela
(1988), relied upon two tacticsnthe promotion of housing in the bantustans and
the freezing of housing development in “white“ areas (p. 636). Bekker and
Humphries (1985) point out, for example, that in 1982, 60% of the work load of
the PNAB’s Department of Technical Services (responsible for the development
and maintenance of townships, infrastructure, housing projects, and other

community facilities) was taken up with projects in KwaZulu (p. 36). On the other

hand, in Lamont, situated in “white“ Durban, for example, comprehensive

126
freezing strategies were employed from the early 19603. These included a
freeze on the acquisition of new land, a total halt on housing construction, and
restricting occupancy of houses to rental basis only. In 1984, the Hankinson
Commission, investigating housing in Natal, found that in the previous 22 years
not one new dwelling had been provided in Lamont (Booth 8 Biyela, 1988, p.
636).

In 1977, a report for the church organization, Diakonia, described Lamont
township as “a place fraught with problems—crime, alcoholism, illegitimacy,
unemployment, fear, insecurity and pent-up frustrations. The township is just a
dormitory, a place where you come back to sleep“ (W. 28 January
1977).

State policy led to an even further deterioration in material conditions in
African townships in “white“ areas in Natal. This deterioration was reinforced by
a significant change In the financial fortunes of township administrations in
“white“ areas. Bekker and Humphries (1985) point out that while only 1 of the 22
Boards sustained a deficit in 1975-76, by 1982-83 only 3 of the 14 Boards were
budgeting for a surplus. In 1979-80, the aggregate surplus on the Administration
Boards’ current accounts was R19,696,373, yet by 1982-83, the deficit stood at
R32,140,057 (p. 132). The state was not prepared to intervene as it would have
contradicted its aim of ensuring the townships were financially self-sufficient. Of
course, any support would have negated its policy of freezing developments in

“white“ areas.

127

According to Booth and Biyela (1988), a third tactic (used to remove
surplus African labor in “white“ areas) involved raising the cost of urban
residence (p. 637). This was done by increasing rents and costs of public
transport and other services. The strategy was to force surplus members of the
African urban population in “white“ areas to relocate in the homelands as living
in the towns was found to be economically difficult.

One of the consequences of this freezing of development in the formal
townships was the growth of squatter settlements on the fringes of central
Durban. One of the largest such settlements was at Inanda. Between 1966 and
1979, the population of Inanda grew by 137% (Schlemmer, 1985) and was to
further increase by almost 400% between 1977 and 1985 to reach a population
of about 250,000 in 1985 (Hughes, 1987).

While the material conditions in the formal townships had steadily
deteriorated, conditions in the squatter settlements were much worse. Inanda
was particularly hard hit because it was caught in limbo between KwaZulu and
“white“ South Africa. One survey revealed a lumpenproletariat of some 15% and
an estimated 40% to 50% unemployment of the economically active population
(Sitas, 1986, p. 101).

A more detailed focus on the conflictual relations that existed in Inanda

and how they played themselves out will have to await the next chapter.

2.13 W

It is significant that both riots took place in squatter settlements. In the

settlements there were no formal authority structures. In the 19403, this was

128

typical of all settlements. In the absence of any formal authority, new forms of
combination were often created to ensure some measure of collective security.
Many of the combinations were ethnically based. Authorities described violence
In the squatter settlements as “faction fights“ or “tribal wars.“ However, work by
historians and sociologists has shown that these conflicts often reflected a
struggle to secure the barest necessities of life—such as a job, or a roof over
one’s head—in a situation in which resources were in desperately short supply
(Bonner 8 Lambert, 1987).

In Benoni, Transvaal, in the 19403, intense competition was bred over
what meager resources existed. Often this competition turned violent, especially
over access to housing. Following a violent confrontation in 1949, the Township
Superintendent commented,

It is known but not proved that for some time these [gangsters] have

extorted considerable sums of money from the unfortunate and gullible

native people by every conceivable pretext such as the offer of physical
and legal protection, housing material, representation to the Council,

employment, etc. The outbreak of fighting is usually an indication that a

rival racketeer is trying to gain control. (quoted in Bonner 8 Lambert,

1987,p.346)

Among the most notorious of these gangs were the “Russians,“ who were
distinguished by the Sotho blanket in which followers draped themselves. As
these groups began to carve up the location into separate fiefdoms, so-called
“faction fights“ flared up. To begin with, conflict was located among rival factions
of “Basotho“ such as the Matsieng and Molapo. By August 1949, it had widened

to embrace conflicts between “Xhosa“ and “Basotho” (Bonner 8 Lambert, 1987,

p. 345).

129

Bonner and Lambert’s (1987) research into Benoni revealed, first,
differentiation and layering of the African population whereby one sector was
relatively more advantaged in terms of houses and jobs and, second, an
introverslon of competition and conflict along internal lines of fracture (p. 347).
Often ethnicity and layering interpenetrated or overlapped. For example, in the
1949 riot between “Xhosas“ and “Basotos,“ the Xhosas approached the
emergency squatter camp from the direction of Wattsville, the squatter camp that
was the emergency home of the more recently arrived Basotho. A similar,
although not entirely analogous, context framed the fight of 1954, where the
“Zulus“ dominated the hostels at Benoni, while the “Russians“ controlled the
Indian section. Their central thesis was that the scale and rapidity of
urbanization, the lack of basic services and resources, and the multiple lines of
fracture in Benoni’s urban population ensured that popular energies would be
absorbed in communal struggles aimed at minimally meeting basic wants. Those
same factors likewise inhibited sustained large-scale mobilization.

In squatter camps nearer central Johannesburg, squatter communities
were prepared to engage in direct collective action against authorities that
attempted to undermine their presence in the urban areas. This was facilitated
by the fact that the camps were led by individual, powerful leaders. As Stadler
(1979) has shown, these leaders Issued squatter “permits“ for a fee, they had an
organization that regulated entry to the camps, expelled nonmembers,
administered facilities, and punished offenders against regulations with fines and

beatings (p. 105). All outsiders were subjected to their discipline, and they also

130
controlled trading in the areas and charged traders a fee for the right to enter the
camps. “What particularly irked the Municipality was the way in which the
movement displaced the state as the effective power in the areas under their
control“ (Stadler, 1979, p. 105).

What was central to the squatter movements was their determination to
remain in the urban areas. The squatter camps made possible the consolidation
offamily life. The shantytowns also provided means beyond wage labor in which
to acquire cash. In a context where many were not fully employed or were
unemployed, this was particularly crucial. In Mkhumbane, for example, the range
and assortment of activities was far more diverse than in any other single area
of the city.

From the selling of passes, often supplied from pickpockets operating on

the busses to and from Mkhumbane, the making of leather belts, the

collecting and selling of empty “White man’s liquor“ bottles, the dagga
networks extending to Pondoland and northern Zululand, to fruit,
vegetable and cooked meat vendors, to the shackshops and ubiquitous

sheebeen queens. (Edwards, 1989, p. 83)

Shack settlements were more than just a response to housing shortages.
As capitalist expansion and the tightening of central and local state controls
served to close down various forms of urban space of subordinate groups, shack
settlements served to open spaces. Durban’s main shack settlement, Cato
Manor, for example, enabled Africans to occupy a sizable portion of Durban’s
physical space in an area that was within easy commuting distance of both the
southern industrial and the central business and residential network. Similarly,

in Johannesburg, the local authorities responded to the massive increase in the

number of black families in the urban areas by trying to drive them out of the

131
freehold areas within the municipal boundaries and the inner city. However, as
Stadler (1979) notes, squatter movements successfully exploited the precarious
opportunities presented during the Second World War to establish a viable
community on Johannesburg’s southern boundaries.

Over weekends, workers from hostels and barracks throughout the city
flocked into the Mkhumbane to partake of diverse forms of entertainment on
offer. Edwards (1989) argues that the circulation of money, goods, and services
created a sense of unity and community in Mkhumbane (p. 84). According to
Edwards, Mkhumbane’s economy was based around the need for money to
circulate rapidly within the shacklands. Together with the cooperatives, the main
venue for the redistribution of money was the stokvel. The stokve/ host would
buy meat and alcohol and often hire musicians. People would move between
various sfolrve/s, the only constraints being the need to pay the required entrance
fee and willingness to spend money. At the end of the stokvel, the master of
ceremonies would give the host a list of how much each guest had spent. There
was an extremely strong moral compulsion on the host to attend stokve/s held
by his guests and to spend equal if not larger amounts.

Shack settlements were a form of resistance. It was a resistance to
Stallardism, which proposed that the right of Africans to be in urban areas rested
solely on their willingness “to enter and minister to the needs of the white man“
(quoted in Davenport, 1969, p. 95). It was a resistance to a system that sought

to secure the labor-power of Africans while minimizing their presence as people.

132

Life in squatter settlements is particularly volatile because law,
administrative regulation, and control over property are not determined by the
apparatus of the central or the local state, for these are external to such areas.
The local state does not intervene as a mechanism of allocation, access,
distribution, or enforcement of rights to residential resources. These functions
are based on the ability of social groupings in these areas to exercise localized
control over the material resources central to urban reproduction and therefore
to claim and enforce ownership of them. Even if these groupings have dejure
ownership of land, they cannot rely on the repressive apparatus of the state to
ensure that rents and levies are collected. Squatter leaders have to demonstrate
their own capacity to ensure that rents are paid. Violence is thus inscribed in the
very relations of reproduction, and consequently, it also breeds resentment,
conflict, and resistance. This occurs not only between the dominant and
dominated, between the employed and unemployed, but critically within the
dominant shacklord grouping. Squatter leaders depend on sublieutenants or
committees to exercise control, ensure community discipline, stifle dissent, and
extract surplus. The considerable pecuniary gain and attraction of greater
personal power encourage lieutenants to attempt to displace one another or hive
off to form their own communities or indeed attempt to take ultimate power in the
area. Squatter camps are often involved in power struggles at the center. The
social relations of power are thus simultaneously characterized by volatility and

stasis as the locus of power and control shifts around.

133
2.14 Summary

The chapter lays out the racial hierarchy that begins to emerge in the
19203 as urbanization gathers momentum. Whites locate themselves at the top,
Indians in the middle, and Africans at the bottom. Africans and Indians compete
at the levels of the labor market, housing, trade, and transport. Indians come to
be perceived as blocking the upward mobility of Africans. Attempts at building
interdependence through multiracial political and worker organizations fail. The
competitive relations intensify as the economy contracts, and the policy of
segregation collapses. The chapter then moves to the racial hierarchy ofthe city
in the 19803. It was found that Indians had consolidated themselves as a
middleman minority. While some Africans enjoyed greater upward mobility,
unemployment and poverty spiraled. It was Africans who were most hurt by the
economic downswing in the latter part of the 19703. Africans and Indians
continued to compete for the scarce resources ofjobs, trading opportunities, and
land. This competition took place in the context of a militant challenge by
Africans to the urban apartheid edifice. The intervening years had failed to build
any interdependence between the two communities. Africans came to see
Indians as privileged by the apartheid state and therefore competition with them
as unfair. The final part of the chapter focuses on squatter settlements and how
the social relations that prevail within them lend themselves to violence.

The central discussion in this chapter revolved around the emergence and
then the gradual consolidation of a racial hierarchy and a racial competition since

the 19403. Evidence of this was found by looking at what was going on in the

134

economy at large, especially in the spheres of the labor market, housing, trade,
and transport. An additional set of factors was looked at because of their impact
on developing a racial hierarchy and competition. These factors were: the
nature and character of the political economy itself, for example, rapid
urbanization, industrialization, segmented markets; the role of the state’s
segregation policies; the role of the local state’s interventions; and the part
played by the fragmentary nature of politics in Durban (Natal Indian Congress,
Zulu nationalism, and the like). Attempts to counter this in the form of nonracial
trade unions and multiparty alliances were also pointed to.

A similar set of organizing categories was used for the 1980s—that is, the
labor market, trade, and so on. In each of these, the role of the apartheid state,
local state, and oppositional political groups was examined.

Both periods ended with a comparative analysis: in the late 19403 the
breakdown of segregation and the emergence of apartheid and in the early to
mid-19803 the breakdown of grand apartheid, and a lack of clarity about what is
to emerge (the current conjuncture of uncertainty).

We now move from looking at the general sources of lndo—African
antagonism and the conditions exacerbating them to a more particular attention

to the character of the riots.

CHAPTER 3

THE RIOTS OF 1949 AND 1985

3.1 IDILQdumiQn

In the previous chapter, an analysis of the predisposing factors to the
violence was undertaken. Here the more subjective issues that precipitated the
violence in their specific locales are examined.

In this context, the first part of this chapter looks at the social relations in
Cato Manor in the 19403. This is followed by a discussion and analysis of the
riot itself. Particular attention is paid to whether or not the riots were planned, the
composition of the rioters, and whether it was anti-Indian or anti-apartheid. The
second part of the chapter focuses on the history of Inanda and the events
immediately preceding the riot. In the final section, an in-depth discussion of the

1985 violence is undertaken.

3.2 W
As documented in Chapter 2, the growth of squatter settlements around
Durban was linked to the municipal authorities’ refusal to accept permanent
African residence. By the 19403, the city’s native policy was still geared towards
a migrant labor system, based on service contract passes and single-sex hostels
situated in the city center. Durban’s highly restrictive African housing policy,

however, made little impression on the scale of African settlement in the city.

135

136

Starting in the 19203, but escalating sharply from the late 19303, thousands of
rural immigrants began to rent shack sites. A central point of shack settlement
became the predominantly Indian-owned Cato Manor areajust west of the Berea
ridge. The real growth of Cato Manor took place from the middle of the 19403.
By 1948, out of the more than 150,000 Africans officially believed to be resident,
legally or illegally in the city, reliable estimates put the total African population of
Cato Manor Farm at 29,000. By 1950, the African population of the area could
have constituted approximately 20% of the total African population of the city
(Edwards, 1989, p. 57).

Cato Manor was notjust a demographic phenomenon. It was a contested
space, the main focus of a specifically African struggle for land and urban rights
in a citythat had consistently denied these. Mkhumbane became a territorial and
ideological symbol central to the squatter populism of the late 19403. Influential
Zionist preachers in the shantytowns referred to Mkhumbane as the “promised
land.“7 Through both the cooperative movement and the emergence of new
forms of squatter leadership, Cato Manor embodied alternative structures of
economic and political power in the hostile city.

Relationships among Africans living inthe Mkhumbane shack settlements
were based around highly complex ownership and tenancy agreements. An
individual shack cluster was often owned by a number of people, both Indian and

African. Some of the African part-owners lived in this cluster, others not. Both

 

7Zionism in this context does not refer to the attempt to reestablish a Jewish
nation. The Church of Zion referred to here is an African church, with no links to
the international Zionist movement.

137

owners and tenants sublet rooms. By the late 19403, a process of differentiation
had emerged between tenants and those now known as shacklords.

Leadership in Mkhumbane was often determined by a person’s access to
key material resources. But with the complex shack ownership and tenancy
agreements evident in the Mkhumbane shacklands, there were many people who
could claim such power. The major leaders of Mkhumbane emerged through a
protracted struggle among the shackland residents. These were the “mayors“
of Mkhumbane. Power was often gained through successfully reducing the
authority of others during the course of battles over the control of space and
resources in the shacklands. Battles were fought by shack residents who were
organized into local vigilante forces. These were the imp/'3, mainly comprised of
the underclasses of Mkhumbane society. Receiving either payments of cash or
kind or various forms of preferential treatment from leaders and shack residents,
the authority of such bands ranged over much of Mkhumbane. However, these
vigilante bands had a wider purpose. In many ways the protection of local areas
was left to such groups. Through the imp/‘3, the shack residents asserted their
desire to remain residents in a Mkhumbane not controlled by any unwanted
external power. Shack leaders also gained influence through distributing
patronage within their particular settlements and through their concern with the
day-to-day problems of shack residents.

Influence within the shacklands was not, however, solely related to ability
to control material resources or successfully mobilize and maintain support

through either direct coercion or patronage. Respected persons were often

138

those who could explain to residents the power and future of the shantytown
community. Among these were the leaders of the many militant Zionist groups
that came to be established in Mkhumbane (Sundkler, 1976, p. 77). Many of the
original members originated from the Charlestown area, an important Zionist
shrine, and had moved into the shantytowns as a result of the Union
Govemment’s resettlement policy in northern Natal. Others appeared either to
have followed or later become supporters of Esau Makatini, a Zionist descendant
of the Le Fleur peasant family who had fought against white land acquisitions in
the East Griqualand area and in South West Africa. Having a well-established
liturgy, much ofwhich was centered around the need for land, the Zionists gained
widespread acceptance among people vigorously asserting the right to declare
Mkhumbane their home (Sundkler, 1964).

Zionist priests constantly depicted the struggles of the Mkhumbane
residents in terms of images directly lifted from the Old Testament and a past
Zulu rural prosperity. Such leaders imbued residents with the means to both
understand and legitimize their struggles within the city. Within a shackland
community living on clearly contested terrain and, furthermore, both outside of
direct chiefly authority and rejecting the leadership of the urban African elite, a
new leadership defined the nature of shackland residents’ struggles.

Women formed a very important constituency in Cato Manor. Women
began to enter Durban in increasing numbers in the early 19003. Those African
women who did not take up domestic employment or register as washerwomen

moved into prostitution or the informal brewing trade. In 1907 it was estimated

139
that a quarter of African women resident in Durban were involved in the beer
trade (Ia Hausse, 1984, pp. 48-49).

It was not surprising that women played a significant part in opposing the
municipality’s monopoly over beer production and sales in the 19203 and 19303.
Brewing and prostitution provided the only real means of subsistence for African
women who could notfind work either as domestic servants or as washerwomen.
Roughly one-tenth of the 10,000 African domestic servants were female. A few
hundred women eked out a living as washerwomen, an occupation that by 1928
was virtually closed to Africans. African women tended to occupy a highly
tenuous position within the town. For example, in the mid-19203, police rounded
up and “deported“ hundreds of women who were, if not already brewing, all
potential brewers (la Hausse, 1984, p. 137).

While African women felt the rigorous influx measures most forcefully,
they also were the first to feel impoverishment in the rural areas of Natal. Rural
impoverishment drove African women into Durban and its peri-urban
surroundings. If they began brewing, they faced the repression of the Borough
Police, who continued to raid shebeens8 in support of the beer monopoly and
the urban native policy to which it was allied.

Hounded out of the city center, women turned to the shacklands. The
shacklands provided greater protection from the municipal authorities. Some

women emerged as shebeen “queens.“ They employed men as bodyguards and

 

'Shebeen—an establishment in which formerly illicit home-brewed beer was
sold, or other beer was sold illicitly without a license, usually by African women
known as queens.

140

for the various menial tasks so essential to illicit liquor manufacture. Likewise,
women would be taken on for serving shebeen clientele. Children would be paid
to collect empty bottles for liquor. For women, involvement in petty commodity
production and exchange was vital to their survival as they had no access to
established formal industrial and commercial employment. For men and women
who, whether married or not, desired to live together, it was mainly in the
shacklands that this was possible. Women developed a vital stake in maintaining
Cato Manor as home. lmportantly, they had already shown in the 19203 and
19303 a capacity for organized militant action.

Over weekends, the number of people in Cato Manor was swelled by male
barrack and hostel dwellers. Most of them were dock workers who had a long
history of resistance to their conditions of employment. Beyond the factory floor,
dock workers had taken up wider economic and political issues (Hemson, 1979).

The hostel dwellers formed an important link between the struggles in the
city center and Mkhumbane. It was mainly the hostel dwellers who brought
stories of the attacks on Indian property and persons asthey entered Cato Manor
on the‘Friday alter the rioting began.

The diversity of Cato Manor was unified under the rubric of the ideology
of “New Africa.“ This was an ideology that was formulated in the factories and
the African residential areas of Durban. While it is difficult to discern a consistent
strand running through the ideology, “New Africa“ was used to refer to the
militancy of the later 19403. “The ideology thrived on change, and change and

redefinition became self-justifying“ (Edwards, 1989, p. 12). “Within the political

141
culture of ’New Africa’ were important notions of African ethnic unity, the
acceptability of revenge, and a disrespect towards established notions oflegality“
(Edwards, 1989, p. 51).

Elgee (1981) has shown how an “ideology of vengeance“ had developed
from the early 19003 in Natal’s rural locations. One of the central reasons for
violence in rural areas was the diminishing access to land. Districts began to
regard their territory and grazing facilities as sovereign entities, to be guarded
and fought for in the event of encroachment by other districts. The increasing
pressure of overpopulation generated a fierce competition within the tribe over
grazing grounds and land for cultivation (Clegg, 1981, p. 188).

In Zulu martial thinking, fighting with sticks is considered as “playing,“ and,
indeed, stick-fighting is referred to as ukud/ala ngendulru (to play with sticks). In
Zululand, “playing“ between districts in the form of the umgange/a took place
after weddings.

There were rules to prevent serious injury or death. If a man was killed
at an umgangela, the killer “has no court case“ because they were both “playing“
and it was an unfortunate accident. Clegg (1981) argues that, in a context of
increasing competition for grazing grounds and land for cultivation, “play“ fighting
became impossible (pp. 188-189). Losing a “play“ stick fight with another district
immediately reflected on one’s district’s ability to protect and defend its estate.
This was compounded by the fact that when a man was killed in such a clash,
the dead man’s district had to revenge his death, for to neglect to do so would

give the killer’s district the impression that the dead man’s district was incapable

142

of standing together as a corporate group to protect its estate. If vengeance is
not exacted, it will be said that the people of that district “have not built their
homesteads firmly,“ which reflects on the district’s “finnness.“ Clegg found that
because feuding had its roots in boundary disputes and land-hunger, territorial
affiliation to a district often overrode clan and even immediate family loyalty, if
either lived in another district (p. 190). It was this notion of vengeance based on
the need to defend or show the capacity to defend one’s territory that was
imported into the urban areas as part of the ideology of “New Africa.“

“New Africa“ was to take its own particular form in Mkhumbane. Running
through the lives of the shantytown communities was their future in those areas.
Wedged between municipal authority and the power of Indian landlords and
traders, shack residents felt constantly threatened. It was the need for
permanent residential facilities that translated into “a consciousness which was
both defensive and highly aggressive“ (Edwards, 1989, p. 77). This
aggressiveness was imbued with a chauvinism that “produced a politically
conservative form of millenarian populism which exaggerated the qualities of
one’s own perceived group and belittled and vilified the social norms of those
perceived to be outsiders“ (Edwards, 1989, p. 55).

For the residents of Mkhumbane, the “struggle“ centered around making
the area their permanent home. The fact that the land was in Indian hands
constantly put their “permanency“ under threat. This was exacerbated by
municipal policy. Indian traders also blocked African aspirations to accumulate

capital. Africans wanted exclusive trading rights in the shacklands. These

143
issues, when fused with the “millenarian populism“ of the time, made for a
constantly volatile situation.

For the municipality, the solution to the squatting “problem,“ especially at
Cato Manor, would be found if Durban was allowed to acquire land at Umlazi for
a new township. The threat of the shantytowns would be destroyed through
physical removal to areas of formally controlled housing. The municipality saw
the city being divided up into broad zones of white, African, and Indian
settlements.

The 1946 Indian Land Tenure Act supported this vision. The Act had
direct consequences for Africans in Durban. The Cato Manor district and other
African shack areas were to become the exclusive preserve of Indians. Africans
would also lose the municipally owned Chesterville township. The plan was to
move Afrimns as far away from the city center as possible. In one broad sweep,
Africans across the class spectrum were faced with their greatest threat: the
wealthy few who had bought small sites in greater Cato Manor, the new African
shacklords who had sprung up as intermediaries between landowners and
tenants, the newly secure occupants of Chesterville township, and thethousands
of squatters who were struggling to make “Mkhumbane our home.“

Already within Cato Manor there was a thirst for more land. Both
shacklords and tenants wanted to own whole shacks. Indian landowners and
shackrenters were easily identifiable obstacles in the drive for more property.
African material interests in the shacklands found common ground with those of

the more established African elite, who had long sought to advance their

144
interests through segregationist rhetoric and anti-lndianism. “African“ areas
“belonged“ to Africans and should be an exclusive preserve for “African“
accumulation.

Municipal and state policy during the later 19403 had a crucial impact on
anti-lndianism in African society. The municipality’s legal campaigns against
Indian landowners, and especially the 1946 legislation, propelled Indians into the
no-man’s-land between squatters and the authorities. Aspirant African
landowners expressed their material interests and stood to gain political mileage
by attacking specifically “Indian“ interests. African political and clerical leaders
popularized the view that the 1946 Acts divided the city between whites and
Indians. and cast Africans out (Riots Commission 1949, Evidence, pp. 224-242).

In a very real sense, to Africans whose class positions ranged from those
of aspirant landowners to lumpen squatters, Indians generally seemed to be
favored by the 1946 legislation. The mass of Durban’s Africans developed at
least some material interest in anti-lndianism.

This was exacerbated by the National Party’s campaign for the 1948
election, in which anti-Indianism was to reach new heights. C. R. Swart (later to
be Minister of Justice) told audiences that Indians were “an undesirable and
foreign element“ and needed strict government supervision. Mr. Sauer (later
Minister of Transport) promised: “We, as a Government, want to help you in
Natal. . . . The government will not allow one part of the Union to become
dominated by an Eastern Philosophy“ (Durban Town Clerk’s Files, 10 November

1948).

145

The National Party’s election manifesto stated that “the Party will strive to
repatriate or move elsewhere as many Indians as possible; the present ban on
Indian immigration, inter-provincial movement and penetration will remain and be
more stringently maintained“ (Ginwala, 1974, p. 134).

Official speeches are not, of course, read by the participants in the riots,
but official attitudes filter through into popular consciousness and set the limits
within which people feel permitted to act. Senator Lowen described it as follows:

Statements made during the recent campaigning for elections to the
Senate had created strained relations. The withdrawal of family
allowances and pensions of Indians and the continued and deliberate
stigmatizing of Indians by such allegations that they were an undesirable
element and that they should be repatriated had created conditions which
led to the attack. . . . Speeches by Government Ministers such as
Schoemann, Swart, Jansen and Malan propagated hatred against the
Indians by the Europeans and the Native and greatly enhanced the
likelihood of such an explosion. (quoted in Webster, 1978)
The United Party MP Stuart put it equally bluntly:
When you spend the whole of the last year talking about going to deport
all Indians and how the Indian is gong to be eliminated, how he is going
to be wiped out. . . the impression must necessarily arise among the less
educated that as the Indian is going to be wiped out it is a pleasure to help
wherever the opportunity occurs. That is the first fruits of loose talking on
race relations. (Kirkwood 8 Webb, Evidence to Inquiry)

During the late 19403, various forces interacted to foster and generalize
anti-lndianism among Africans: the daily experiences of Africans as squatters,
consumers, and commuters; the tenor of African political rhetoric; and the state’s
differential policies towards Indians and Africans. The housing and land
question, more than any other in Durban’s black politics of the 19403, brought

African-Indian relations to the fore. This flowed from Durban’s historical policies,

146
from racial patterns of settlement, from state intervention during the 19403, and

from distinctly communal mobilization by Africans and Indians.

3.3 W
While there were potentially numerous points of conflict between African
and Indian, there were no indications during early January 1949 of there being

an “explosion.“ What was the “spark“ that set off the conflict?

3.3.1 Ibe'LSoark:

On Thursday, 13 January 1949, an Indian shopkeeper assaulted an
African youth, George Madondo. While the injury was not serious, there was a
lot of blood. Although violence was not abnormal in that part of the world, the
incident took place in a potentially volatile context. It happened in the vicinity of
a crowded \fIctoria Street, in close proximity to the central bus depot, where
thousands of Africans and Indians congregated before making their way home.
Victoria Street was a particularly busy area, for it contained numerous market
stalls and Durban’s largest “Native“ beer hall. The incident took place on
Thursday, the traditional day off for male domestic workers, many of whom would
have congregated at the beer hall.

The domestic servants could have been the key factor triggering the
collective violence. They were part of the “ama/aitd’ gangs, famed for their stick-
fighting abilities. There were some 20,000 male domestic workers in Durban at

the time (Burrows, 1959, pp. 150-152). Seeing the bloodied figure of Madondo.

147
the amalaitas probably responded. The initial confrontation, the assault on an
African youth by an Indian man,

merged with the corporate grievances and frustrations to focus African

anger on key symbols in the race hierarchy: Indian shops and buses. . . .

In the heat of the moment, Indian individuals became targets, corporately

associated with “Indian“ symbols. (Nuttall, 1989, pp. 19-20)

Within minutes, Victoria Street became a cauldron of violent confrontation.
Shops were looted, and buses were peppered with stones and other missiles.
There were already signs that the State would not be overly keen to protect
Indian property. Through the 19403, white municipal politics was geared to
placing a barrier on Indian property rights. This position coalesced with the
newly elected 1948 Nationalist government, who announced their intention to
repatriate Indians.

The police took little action to protect Indian property and individuals being
attacked. By Thursday night, 48 Indians and 4 Africans received hospital
treatment for riot injuries. By 11 pm, the looting began to peter out. That night
in the hostel dormitories and shacklands, the events ofthe day were undoubtedly
keenly discussed.

Of course, the story-telling was mixed with rumor. Madondo’s head, it was
claimed, was cut off and placed in a mosque. In fact, Madondo had been treated
at a hospital and discharged. More important, the message that was probably
spread was that there were “easy pickings“ at shops in the Indian commercial
center. In the large hostels at Somtseu Road (8,000 residents) and Bell Street

(1,500 residents), plans were apparently hatched for another attack on the Indian

shopping center during the lunch hour of Friday, 14 January. “Runners“ spread

148
these plans to all the hostels, as far north as the Coronation Brick and Tile
compound on the banks of the Umgeni.9 A city hostel manager was to remark
subsequently that the levels of anger and excitement of the residents were
unprecedented. While there was no formal organization, it was the informal
social networks of the hostels and workplaces that came to the fore in this period.

At lunchtime on Friday, some 2,000 Africans converged on the Indian
commercial center. The police, having heard the rumor, had increased their
number with white civilians, armed with batons. However, policing was difficult
as the crowd had broken up and the looting was carried out in small groups.

Individual Indians were robbed. All the while white onlookers gathered,
their inaction probably seen as approval. Some even joined the looting. White
shops close by were not touched. “The ’rules of the riot,’ developed the day
before, had been rapidly learnt; confine assaults to Indians to avoid the full
deployment of white power“ (Nuttall, 1989, p. 22). In the afternoon, looting of
shops in Umgeni and South Coast Roads began.

Photographs of the rioters are revealing of who they were. They were
overwhelmingly young men who wore the clothes of employed workers and petty
traders rather than those of the unemployed Iumpenproletarians (Natal Archives,
3/Durban 4/1/3/1580.323 B, 2: Durban City Corporation memo to Riots
COmmission, 11 March 1949).

 

°Edwards and Nuttall (1990, p. 25) have noted that similar ways of organizing
operated just as effectively during the 1973 Durban strikes, and migrants’ attacks
on the residential area of KwaMashu during the 1980 school boycott in Durban.
(Plans of the attack were to spread to other hostels.)

149
3.3.2 Wham

At 4 pm. on Friday, about 1,000 Somtseu Road hostel residents moved
towards the city center. Their focus of attack was once again the Indian
shopping area. The authorities, however, were beginning to perceive the strong
possibilities of the violence encroaching on the white areas. The riots were
showing distinct signs of challenging white authority itself (Riot Commission
1949, Evidence, G. Bestford, pp. 31-54; NataLMfitcum. 17 January 1949). The
police met the mass just as they were entering the Indian area. When warning
shots were ignored, the police fired into the crowd. Four people died on the
scene, and the crowd rapidly dispersed.

As news of the police shootings spread, the focus of the riots shifted to the
shack areas, especially Cato Manor. It was on Friday night, in the shack areas,
that the massacres, the burnings, and rapes were to take place.

The layout of the shack areas created a number of problems for the
police. The shacks were located on steep slopes, in tight clusters, the clusters
separated by dense bush. Roads were few. All this the residents were aware
of, for they knew the police raiding parties had to operate in small numbers to be
effective. The residents of the city hostels attracted to the shebeens of Cato
Manor over weekends also knew the terrain well. Unlike Somtseu Road, the
police would not be able to confront the rioters as a single cohesive force.

Friday night was to see the Jacobs area and especially Cato Manor

engulfed in violence. Indian houses and shops were destroyed, and many

150
Indians were killed or assaulted. While some Africans tried to protect Indian
families and property, these were a minority.

The intensity of the attack had completely destroyed the Indian presence
in Cato Manor designated for them by the authorities. The only state building in
Cato Manor, the post office, was destroyed. If there had been others, they
probably would have met the same fate.

Late on Friday night, the police began to respond. It was probably the
militancy of the rioters rather than the attacks on Indian people and property that
facilitated the police “show of force.“ Machine guns were brought into action and
sometimes fired “for five minutes at a time.“ A news reporter remarked that these
were scenes reminiscent of the Second World War (DailLNews, 15 January
1949).

It is difficult to ascertain who the rioters were. It is almost certain that the
city hostel dwellers were there as well as Iumpen elements (Riots Commission
1949, Evidence, pp. 152-162). Rather than being mere bystanders to violence
perpetrated by marginal elements, as tenants, customers, and petty traders,
there was a strong basis for shack residents to be involved in the violence
against Indians.

Although there were isolated incidents throughout the weekend, by
Saturday morning the violence had petered out. The rioters had managed to
destroy Indian presence in the shantytowns and neighboring districts. By

Saturday afternoon, there were almost 25,000 Indian refugees in the city. If the

1 51
rioters felt victorious, the state had also achieved a short-term objective: the
rioters had been harshly reminded of the state’s capacity for violence.

For Edwards and Nuttall (1990), the violence in Cato Manor amounted to
a pogrom: the organized extermination and expulsion of all Indians (p. 27).
Mkhumbane was to be liberated. ‘

The potential lines of conflict in Cato Manor were outlined earlier. There
was an acute realization that if Mkhumbane was truly to be “home,“ then Indian
control of the land and trade had to be eroded. The cooperatives had largely
failed to do this. “Indians stood in the way of African shackdwellers’ ambitions.
. . . Aware of municipal weakness in controlling shantytowns through looting and
killing lndians, power could be avenged in a way that would produce a social
class in which African control could be established“ (Edwards, 1989, p. 51).

Africans quickly moved into what was left of Indian shops while roadside
stalls selling fruit and vegetables proliferated. A resident poignantly captured the
complete change in the social relations of Cato Manor: “The blacks were now
at an advantage as the Indians had left. The Indians did leave. We beat them
up. We burnt them“ (quoted in Edwards, 1989, p. 52).

However, the “liberated zone“ was not to last for long. The broad unity of
the community led by a diverse leadership was difficult to hold once the enemy
had been destroyed. When the state intervened in the 19503, these weaknesses

were to be readily apparent.

152
3.3.3 AlteLIheMolence

Immediately after the riot, the national leaders of the African National
Congress (AND), the South African Indian Congress, and the Communist Party
of South Africa met in Durban. They sought ways to minimize the potential for
further conflict. A statement was issued by the Natal Indian Congress and ANC
leaders, G. M. Naicker and A. W. G. Champion, respectively, condemning the
violence. Later they toured the city with loudspeakers, calling for calm.
Champion’s role was ironic, for he was known for his anti-Indian views.

The attempt to build black unity against the state, increasingly noticeable
in public pronouncements from the Natal Indian Congress and ANC, received a
severe setback by the violence. In the zeal to heal the racial rift, the anti-state
aspect of the violence was ignored. In any event, the Congress leaders would
have found it difficult to harness.

Beyond the NIC and ANC, there were those who saw the advantages the
riots had created. There were potential gains for traders, local squatter leaders,
and political activists and ordinary workers and shack residents. Popular
attempts were made to take advantage of the riots in Cato Manor, especially in
the Booth Road area. After a fortnight, Indian refugees began to trickle back to
their homes, but Booth Road remained a “no-go“ area. Indian buses were
boycotted in Booth Road and the main Cato Manor terminus. Buses laid on by
the municipality were used instead. African—driven cars and small lorries also
found a lucrative market as pirate taxis (Sundaylflbune. 20 February 1949).

Hundreds of stalls set up by petty traders filled the road in a few days, hoping to

153
take advantage of new possibilities created by the demise of Indian competition.
Applications for pedlars’ licenses poured in, while many set up shop without the
necessary permission (Natal Archives, 15 February 1949).

The general boycott of Indian buses did not last long. But at Booth Road,
by the end of February, Indian buses were only canying around 25% of their pre-
riot traffic (Natal Archives, 25 February 1949).

Pickets in small groups, dressed in khaki, sought to enforce the boycott.
At whose behest they acted remains unclear, although the new pirate taxi-
operators had the most to gain by the boycotts. With the presence of the pickets,
violence became a feature of the boycott, but there was widespread support.
This is evidenced by Indian buses being booed on arrival at the terminus and
stoned en route to their destinations (Natal Archives, 30 May 1949). The
certificates allowing municipal buses to operate from Booth Road were due to
expire at the end of February. This would mean that the route would once again
be the exclusive domain of Indian-owned buses. Rumors that Africans would
burn all the Indian buses if this happened began to do the rounds. Responding
to the rapid spread of the rumors, 500 Indians sought the safety of refugee
camps. People continued to be receptive to the spirit of the riots. As if accepting
this, police patrols were increased, and the municipal bus certificates were
renewed.

While conservatives in the Durban ANC and Native Advisory Board
agreed to participate in ajoint council with the Natal Indian Congress to “promote

mutual understanding“ (Karis 8 Carter, 1973, p. 287), they also sought to use the

154
riots to increase their leverage with the municipality. They particularly sought to
promote the interests of an aspirant commercial middle class. Thus, they were
keen supporters of segregation policies that denied Indian traders access to
“Native“ areas (Natal Archives, 4 March 1949; NataLMeLcurx. 17 January 1949).

The state moved in to consolidate its position. A ban was placed on all
public meetings until the middle of February. About 100 Africans were charged
with public violence and given sentences of hard labor. Armored cars patrolled
the city, and prosecution of pirate taxis and illegal street traders was stepped up
(NatalMeLcunL. 26 January and 19 February 1949). Alongside this, the Zulu
paramount chief was called in to address hostel and shackdwellers. This was
done in order to renew the legitimacy of municipal authorities and to warn against
further rioting (flange, 22 January and 5 March 1949).

The municipality also needed to address the longer term policy responses
to the riots. A common perception among whites was that there were too many
Africans in the city. The Native Administration Department, under orders from
the City Council, began tightening influx control in December 1949.

The future of Cato Manor was also an issue. Beyond the problems of
health and housing, Cato Manor had displayed during the riots a seething
militancy with which the City Council felt ill at ease. The municipality was divided
on how to deal with the issue. Some felt that all the shack residents should be
removed—by force, if need be. Others argued for controlled site and service
schemes on expropriated land in the area. This was to be a central concern in

the 19503.

155

In the next section, an in-depth analysis of the violence is undertaken.

3.4 Compositiomotthefloters

Irrationalists Sighele and Le Bon argue that it is those at the very bottom
of the social heap who participate in riots. “Criminals, madmen, the offspring of
madmen, alcoholics, the slime of society, deprived of all moral sense, given over
to crime—these compose the greater part of the revolutionaries,“ wrote Sighele
(1892, p. 104). The political implications of this position are patent. It does not
allow for the notion that crowd action might be a response to authentic interests
or needs. As noted in Chapter 2, this “scum of the earth“ theory of participation
in violent events has been disputed by Tilly and his collaborators. They have
argued that popular protest, both violent and otherwise, is a “normal“ outgrth
of other popular collective action, and that participants are apt) to be typical of the
social groups whose interests the protests represent. There have been
convincing studies of ghetto rioting in the United States which depicted
participants as typical residents of the neighborhoods involved (Caplan, 1970;
Fogelson 8 Hill, 1968).

Studies of the 1949 riots have tended to support the “scum of the earth”
thesis. The official commission of inquiry into the riots reported that it was the
“Native loafers,“ the “Tsotse Boys,“ or the “IWW,“ i.e., the “I won’t works,“ who
“took a leading part in the assaults upon Indians, in the destruction of property
and in the looting“ (Riots Commission Report 1949, p. 19). For Meer (cited in
Webster, 1978), the rioters were mere puppets manipulated by whites. She

characterized African participants as “disembodied abstract thing[s]“ (p. 22).

156

However, documentary and photographic evidence challenges this view.
The amalalta‘o gangs were certainly central to the violence. But the rioters also
consisted of dock workers, ricksha-pullers, and ngoma dance troupes. Press
photographs of the lunchtime attack give some indication as to the composition
of the rioters. They were, in the main, young men. One photograph did reveal
an ululating woman leading a group. Most were relatively well dressed; they
wore the clothes of employed workers and petty traders rather than unemployed
Iumpenproletarians. One march seemed to be led by a dance troupe, probably
a “traditional“ ngoma dance troupe. This type of “traditional“ dancing was
officially organized by the municipality as a form of recreation. In another
photograph, the red-trimmed calico uniforms of domestic servants were
prominent.

The following discussion provides some background details about the

groups involved in the riots.

3.4.1 Amalaitafiangs

By the early 19003, domestic service was almost exclusively the preserve
of African males. The duties of the “houseboy” ranged from cleaning and
cooking to gardening and stable keeping. Domestic servants were invariably
supplied with accommodation on the property of white householders for whom
they worked. Variously described as “hovels,“ “dens,“ or “Ides,“ servant quarters

rapidly evolved into meeting and living places for the houseboy’s comrades and

 

1°Amalaita-stick fighters, street desperados.

157

relatives. If the householder refused the request of a “decent servant“ to permit
“strange kaffirs“ on their premises, more often than not, the domestic servant
would desert his employer. In many instances, “houseboys” rented rooms from
Indian landlords in the center of town. Apart from receiving, in most cases, food
and accommodation from employers, the domestic servant was also supplied
with a uniform. The, at times, tenuous form of social control represented by
domestic servants’ living quarters was echoed by the red-trimmed, khaki
knickerbocker suit worn by “houseboys.“ While denying his individuality and
affirming his subordinate social position, the uniform could become the basis of
self-assertion. When a white city councilor warned Durban’s white community
against employing “daring young thieves“ as houseboys, he was acknowledging
the criminal activities of the amalaita gangs (Ia Hausse, 1984, pp. 31-32).

The origins of organized groups of African criminals or bandits have been
traced back to the “secret society“ of robbers on the Rand in the 18903. Many
of the members of the secret society of criminals known as the Ninevites, or the
isigebengu, returned to their place of origin in Natal when the South African War
broke out in 1899. It was in the towns of Natal, particularly Durban, that these
ex-Johannesburg elements found jobs as “houseboys” and, together with other
sections of the town’s African population, formed amalaita gangs. While it is
possible to overemphasize the social banditry aspect of these gangs, certainly
in Durban they were responsible for many thefts in white households. (For a

general discussion on social banditry, see Hobsbawn, 1972).

158

By 1902, the amalaita gangs in Durban, characterized by their colorful
clothing, their fondness for the concertina, and the inseparability from two fighting
sticks, were being described in the local press as “not merely groups of turbulent
umfaans [but] organized bands, having fortheir object theterrorising of the police
and the defiance of authority. . . . They parade in military formation, yelling and
cursing till midnight“ (NataLMeLQunL. 6 July 1902).

In 1916, the Chief Magistrate noted that amalaita activities were “getting
too frequent“ and stated that they should not be tolerated. He ordered lashes as
punishment for these youths, who, armed with sticks, mouth organs, and
decorated with the umshokobezi (a colorful headgear widely used by rebels
during the Bambatha rebellion), caused increasing unease in the eyes of white
authority (Marks, 1970, p. 252). In one court case, 19 youths, whose average
age was 18, were charged with “maliciously congregating, disturbing the peace
and being armed with sticks“ (Natal Archives, Durban Criminal Records, D Court,
1910-1949, Case heard 3 January 1916).

Shebeens and beer halls were the meeting places of the ama/aita gangs.
At least six amalaita gangs comprising over 150 Africans, many of whom were
domestic servants, made shebeens their arena for intergang fighting. In addition
to these organized bands of militant youths, nine gangs of organized
housebreakers, each under the control ofa single head, were also involved in the
brewing trade, distributing brews throughout the town (la Hausse, 1984).

During the opposition to the municipality’s beer monopoly in the 19203,

the ama/aita had displayed a high degree of militancy. On successive Sundays

159
in May 1929, groups of Africans numbering between 300 and 800 marched from
the ICU Hall in Prince Edward Street to Sydenham, three kilometers away, where
mass meetings were held. A witness to the march on 5 May described it in the
following terms:

They were an organized body—headed by a brass band preceded by a

native in Highland costume-~a kilt. . . . Many of them were dressed in

uniform and carried sticks in military positions. They kept step and
paraded as a military body. (Native Riots Commission, Minutes of

Evidence, p. 24, Evidence of C. W. Lewis)

There was strong ama/aita gang involvement in these protests. Later it
was to emerge that ICU leader Champion and ama/aita gangs had entered into
an alliance during this period (Ia Hausse, 1984, p. 202).

The day of the assault of George Madondo, a Thursday, was the
traditional day that domestic servants, core members of the ama/aita gangs,
congregated around the Victoria Street beer hall. The existence of organized
groupings who were not averse to fighting made for a quick, violent retaliation.

On the Thursday and Friday, ama/aifa gangs were central to the attacks on

Indian persons and property.

3.4.2 WEEDS

After initial reticence, municipal authorities began to encourage ngoma
dances in the 19303. The Chief Constable saw particular benefits from the
control of this popular form of recreation. It provided cheap popular recreation
for workers and supplied an alternative to the patronage of shebeens over
weekends, an activity that always carried with it the threat of labor disruption.

Furthermore, the holding of ngoma dance competitions encouraged divisions

160
within Durban’s African popular classes, especially ifthey were organized along
tribal lines.

White officials understood ngoma dancing to be a form of recreation,
unlike the “melting pot,“ provided by the dance hall, for migrant workers.
However, the line between using “traditional“ Zulu dancing as a means of social
control and the potentially oppositional character of ngoma dancing was a fine
one. By the late 19303, there was increasing evidence that unemployed and
Iumpen elements in the town were finding a place within the ranks of ngoma
dancers and reorganizing them along ama/aita gangs. Some reports also
suggested that dancers were really ama/aitas “in disguise“ (la Hausse, 1984, p.

274).

3.4.3 Binksbafiuflets

The men who were responsible for pulling more than 900 rickshas were
invariably viewed by Durban’s white burgesses as the most rowdy, threatening,
and drunken section of the town’s African workforce. The distinctive “uniform“
of the ricksha puller clearly assisted in the forging of some degree of group
consciousness among these men. Based on the red-trimmed knickerbocker
uniform of domestic servants, the ricksha pullers’ attire extended to include
elaborate headgear and striking designs sewn onto their clothes. The
consciousness of ricksha men in Durban of their position within the subordinate
classes in the town found lucid expression in a number of important strikes. The

two most important of these strikes occurred in 1918 and 1930. On these

161
occasions, the almost 1,000 ricksha pullers came out an blocin protest at their

exploitation at the hands of Durban’s ricksha owners (Hemson, 1979, p. 169).

3.4.4 QQQKMLQEKQES

The dock workers in Durban had a long history of resistance to the
general level of wages in the area and their specific conditions of employment.
In a broader context, they had taken up issues of wider economic and political
struggle. They had led the struggles against the poll tax, against passes, and
against the institution of a municipal monopoly of brewing. By the early 19403,
dock workers consisted of approximately 3.000 to 4,000 workers employed by
the day by four stevedoring companies and the South African Railways and
Harbors.

Accommodation for the dock workers was mainly in barracks constructed
by the municipality. Living conditions in the barracks were appalling. The Smit
Commission reported that the Bell Street compound was “overcrowded, dirty,
and quite unfit for the purpose for which it was being used“ (quoted in Hemson,
1978,p.92)

Dock workers took a leading part in the violence. Easu Laflete, a Cato
Manor leader, said in evidence to the Commission of Inquiry that the worst
attackers of Indian property in Cato Manor came from the Point barracks in the
dock area through the central area of the town into Booth Road and then into
Cato Manor itself (Riots Commission, Evidence, Vol. 1, p. 159). In the Report of
the Commission, the fact that African males were “herded together“ in

compounds was considered a contributing factor to the riots. “Such

162
congregations of men are ready to tinder any spark, and it is clear that the
compound dwellers took an important part in the excesses“ (Riot Commission,

1949, p. 20).

3.4.5 Civilianfiuards

In Mkhumbane, it was the civilian guards in the employ of the self-styled
“mayors of Mkhumbane“ who were central to the violence. They consisted of
Iumpenproletarians and employed shack residents whofell underthe shacklord’s
patronage. However, the civilian guard were not acting as “disembodied abstract
thing[sl.“ They were, in all probability, acting on behalf of the shacklords with a
specific purpose. Moreover, they were well-integrated members of Mkhumbane
involved in the prevailing social networks.

Having gained a comprehensive picture of the composition of the rioters,
it is important to turn our attention to how activity was generated among the
rioters—how were they informed of the riot, and how and where were they
recruited? This will allow us to come to some understanding of whether the riots

were spontaneous or organized.

3.5 W2.

It Is argued here that the critical violence on Thursday, 13 January 1949
was not organized. It was a spontaneous reaction to the bloodied figure of
George Madondo. While itwas spontaneous, certain circumstances allowed for
a collective response. The targets were Indians, who, because of their distinctive

physical traits, could easily be singled out. If the violence had been between

163
Mpondo and Zulu or Hindu and Moslem, targeting the “enemy“ would have been
much more difficult, especially in the teeming cauldron of Victoria Street.

Sociologists Turner and Killian (1987) argue that people come together
to form collectivities through

the combined effect of (1) a condition or event that is sufficiently outside

the range of ordinary happenings that people turn to their fellow human

beings for help and support in interpreting and responding to the situation,
and (2) the availability of pre-existing social groupings through which

intercommunication can be initiated fairly easily. (p. 9)

Similarly, Rule (1988) points to the existence of evidence which indicates
that civil violence is more likely to occur the greater the solidarity among would-
be participants. “Thus participants in race riots share a minimal solidarity in
being able to recognize potential allies and antagonists in terms of their race,
even ifthe particular individuals involved are unknown to one another“ (p. 266).

The collective response was probably facilitated by the amalaita gangs in
the area. The amalaitas controlled the streets and parks at night and were
renowned for their stick fights (la Hausse, 1991). Their composition was
exclusively male, mainly domestic servants. The fact that it was an African!
Indian conflict and there were organized groupings in the area that had a
developed culture of violence facilitated a spontaneous violent collective
response.

The fact that the assault took place close to a congested bus terminus

also contributed to the immediate violent reaction. More important was the close

proximity of the “Native Eating House“ and a municipal beer hall. The latter was

164
an important meeting ground of dock workers, in addition to the amalaitas, and
of ngoma dance groups.

In a strict sense of being unplanned, the riot can be said to have been
spontaneous. But in the sense that participants tended to hold a stereotype of
“the Indian“ in collective and symbolic terms as an alien exploiter (before the riot
actually began) implies, one could argue, that the riot was stmcturally
predetermined because the social structure incorporated ethnic and racial groups
at different levels, and Indians were perceived to benefit by this differential
incorporation.

On Thursday night in the compounds and lomtions, an informal collective
planning took place for an attack on Indians. Giving evidence to the
Commission, a compound manager said: “Friday’s riots were planned. Word
went round that there would be a united attack on the Indians in the afternoon.
Most compounds got the message“ (Riots Commission, 1949, Evidence).

Numerous African witnesses at the Inquiry confirmed that it was generally
known that an attack was to take place at noon on Friday—the rumors were that
Indians had been killing Africans in the Indian quarter. Clearly, the rumors found
fertile ground because of the structurally determined stereotypes held by
communities of each other. In plural societies, the perception of people tends to
be in stereotyped racial categories. but systematic evidence of these stereotypes
is circumstantial during the period of the riots. A decade later, van den Berghe
(1962) undertook a survey of racial attitudes in Durban, where he found strong

antithetical stereotypes held by Africans and Indians of each other. Africans

165
described Indians as “dishonest“ and “exploitative“; Indians described Africans
as “violent“ and “uncultured.“

Turner and Killian (1972) emphasize that since “collective behavior
develops through a communication process, . . . [then] conditions that facilitate
communication and mobilization are essential“ (p. 61), for example, ecological
concentrations and arrangements of people, social control conditions that allow
or preclude the formation of collectivities, and significant symbols. There is
sufficient evidence to indicate that the attack during the Friday lunch hour, and
later that afternoon, on the “Indian quarter“ was organized. The main impetus
for this attack came from the hostel dwellers. Plans of the attack were spread to
all the hostels, as far north as the Coronation Brick and Tile compound on the
northern banks of the Umgeni River (Nuttall, 1989, p. 22). One hostel dweller
tells of his boxing club being the lever through which he and his friends were
mobilized to take part in the “Zulu against Indian war“ (Sitas, 1986, p. 19). One
participant in the’ riots recalls that he gathered with others at the place where “the
boys urinate at the Point“ (KCAV interviews, T. Dlamini, 17 June 1981). These
plans were also facilitated by a certain homogeneity of action and thought that
the hostels imposed.

The ama/aita networks would also have been involved. As distributors of
liquor to the myriad of shebeens, they had a vast network that made for quick
communication. Similarly, the ngoma dance groups had a network of

communication.

166

The second phase of the riots, beginning at 4 pm. on Friday, saw the
rioters, having grown confident from the lunch-time forays, presenting a broader
challenge to the local state. The vicious police reaction put a stop to this
challenge and contributed to the violence being deflected from the city center to
Cato Manor.

The events of Friday in the city center were quickly carried into Cato
Manor. This was facilitated by the special municipal buses which were laid on
to remove commuters quickly from the city center. The late—aftemoon buses
going into Mkhumbane were full as usual. But the mood of the commuters
verged on hysteria as accounts and rumors of the day’s conflict mixed with panic
and heightened expectation. For the buses were not simply carrying
Mkhumbane residents or those seeking weekend entertainment in the
shacklands. There were many who had been involved in the street brawls of the
day, and they spoke of coming to attack the Indians in Mkhumbane. The “shared
excitement“ thesis as a contributor to violent collective behavior has been too
quickly dismissed. Theories that argued for the long-term rationality of collective
violence “have typically viewed shared emotional states as epiphenomenal
without explanatory significance of their own. Yet many violent sequences
appear to depend directly on dissemination of some highly emotional news of no
Inherent strategic significance“ (Rule, 1988, p. 244). Of course, violence would
not occur “in the absence of enduring contention between two racial groups“
(Rule, 1988, p. 244). As we have seen in Cato Manor, Indian monopoly of land,

housing, trade, and transport had long been a contentious issue.

167

This “shared excitement“ undoubtedly contributed to what generated the
violence in Cato Manor. However, the violence was soon taken over by the
“leaders“ of Mkhumbane. Most of the leaders who acquired respect within
particular shantytown areas of Mkhumbane, as awhole, often gained such power
through successfully reducing the authority of others during the course of battles
over the control of space and resources in the shacklands. These were the
“mayors“ of Mkhumbane. Many petty leaders owed their power, in crucial
respects, to their ability to mobilize shack residents into local vigilante forces.
These were the “impis,“ mainly comprised of the underclasses of Mkhumbane
society. Receiving either payments of cash or kind or various forms of
preferential treatment from leaders and shack residents, the authority of such
bands ranged over much of Mkhumbane. However, these vigilante bands had
a wider purpose. In many ways, the protection of local areas was left to such
groups. Through the impis, the shack residents asserted the desire to remain
residents in an Mkhumbane not controlled by any unwanted external power.
However, influence in the shacklands was not limited to those who controlled
material resources or those who maintained support through coercion or
patronage. Considerable influence was wielded by Zionist priests who told of the
struggles of the Mkhumbane residents couched in terms of images lifted directly
from the Old Testament and a past Zulu rural prosperity.11 Recalling “how we

Zulus had lived in this land before the White man and how things should be,“

 

"While there is no evidence of Zionist preachers actually playing a leadership
role in the violence, there is a high probability of participation by their followers.

168
such leaders provided residents with the means to both understand and
legitimize their struggles within the city (Edwards, 1989. pp. 78-79).

It was this leadership that promoted the idea of a community united in its
attempt to create a “New Africa.“ It was this that gave impetus to the idea that
Mkhumbane was somehow different. These attitudes underiay the conception
of Mkhumbane as an alternative society.

Firstly a rejection of authority, particularly municipal, police or Indian

authority that originated from outside of the perceived spatial boundaries

of the African shantytowns. Secondly, a desire to establish and legitimate

Mkhumbane as a new haven existing outside of the patterns of conflict

present in the rest of the city. Finally the articulation of a new morality, a

consciousness aimed at escaping from subjection to a dominant ideology.

(Edwards, 1989, pp. 54-55)

The “shared excitement“ produced by the earlier events in the city center
provided new opportunities for the leaders of Mkhumbane. Shack leaders led
their imp/s into battle. As the impis overran Indian holdings, they were pegged
and guarded against others (NIO memo to Riots Commission, 11 March 1949;
KCAV interviews 305, T. Diamini, 17 June 1981; Riots Commission Evidence, G.
Bestford, pp. 31-54). Impis now became popularly known as the civic guard.
The civic guard led the fight for the liberation of Mkhumbane. This meant the
organized extermination and expulsion of all Indians. The violence went beyond
looting, beating, and breaking to include murder, rape, and burning.

These actions indicate the difficulty in classifying violent collective
behavior as rational or irrational, purposeful or unorganized, instrumental or

consummatory. As Rule (1988) notes,

There is much to suggest that crowd action is not always strictly
purposeful, if by this we mean oriented only to instrumental ends. Some

169
militant crowd action is clearly consummatory rather than instrumental,
and such action often includes the sorts of hair-raising sadistic and
destructive acts that inspired the anxiety ridden visions ofthe irrationalists.
Such actions appear to be ends in themselves, rather than means to
some longer-term end. (p. 242)
Certainlythe riots of 1949 involved both consummatory and instrumental actions.
The looting and beating in the city center and the murder, rape, and burning were
more likely consummatory rather than instrumental. However, the imp/s,
presumably sent into battle by the “mayors“ and priests, had a potential

objective-the removal of Indian authority and its replacement by their own.

3.6 19592Antizlndian_QLAnti:AoartheidZ

Anti-Indianism in African society was fueled by municipal and state policy
during the 19403. The 1946 Indian Land Tenure Act gave the regional zoning
proposals legislative force. The Act had major implications for Africans in
Durban. The Cato Manor district and other African shack areas were set aside
exclusively for Indian occupation. The rationale for this was that Indians owned
the land so they only had the right to residence. However, the municipally owned
Chesterville township (completed the year before) was also earmarked for
Indians. What was clear was that the plan was to ensure that Africans were not
allowed to settle in any significant numbers within the immediate confines of the
city. These zoning proposals affected all classes of Africans: the wealthy few
who had bought small sites in greater Cato Manor, the new African shacklords
who had sprung up as intermediaries between landlords and tenants, the newly
secure occupants of Chesterville township, and the thousands of squatters who

were struggling to make “Mkhumbane our home.“

170

Squatters responded in diverse ways to evictions and threats of evictions.
Durban did not have the growth of large-scale squatter movements, defiantly
occupying vacant municipal land, as had occurred on the Rand during the 19403
(Stadler, 1979). The Natal African Tenants and Peasants Association was
weakly organized and focused its attention on taking up individual squatter
complaints in paralegal fashion. At times, white authority was targeted.
However, most often those in closer proximity, the new subclass of African shack
renters, and Indian landowners were the targets of the squatters.

Within Mkhumbane, relationships that had developed around ownership
and tenancy were highly intricate. Ownership of an individual shack cluster was
held by a number of people, both Indian and African. Some of the African part-
owners operated as absentee landlords, while others resided in the cluster. Both
owners and tenants sublet rooms. By the late 19403, through a series of
struggles, there emerged shacklords, the mayors of Mkhumbane. Crucial to the
shacklords’ maintenance of their territorial power was the formation of vigilante
forces made up of Iumpenproletarians and employed shack residents. Edwards
(1989), while not denying the despotic and undemocratic style of shacklords,
paints a romantic vision of shack leaders operating

within the restrictive bounds of a collective community consciousness

which stressed the need for social stability and proletarian ordinariness.

. . . [T]hrough the impis, the shack residents asserted their desire to

remain residents in an Mkhumbane not controlled by any unwanted

external power. (pp. 78-79)

However, the impiswere there to protect and broaden the territorial power

of the shacklord. Power was based on access to the instruments of force.

 

re:

171
Shacklords were not modem-day Robin Hoods. Their victims were the poor and
the downtrodden. Edwards’s (1989) own interviews with Cato Manor residents
reveal how crucial the threat of violence was in the relationship between
shacklord and tenant. Note Mr. Ndlovu’s recollections
When you wanted to ask a question about something that was troubling
you, you spoke to the man who owned your place. You know that
because you are giving money to him and you are staying in his place that
he would help you. He would be very cross if he knew that you did not do
this. He was there to help you. (p. 78)
and Mrs. Phewa’s reminiscences:
If you wanted anything, a shack, or if KwaMuhle says you must leave

Durban and go back to your home, or a shebeen, then you must go to
your leader. They will fix it for you. Even if you want a shackshop, then

you must ask your mayor and . . . iLyoujionojjalkjommanoomejnem

W. (p. 79, emphasis mine)

It was their access to the means of violence that “protected“ the African
shacklords during the riots of 1949. Squatters did not have the organizational
capacity to take on the impis. Indian landlords and shack renters were much
more vulnerable. Rinder (1958-59), in writing about the people in the status gap,
argues that, in addition to “their visibility and vulnerability, these people live in
proximity to the people they serve. Their settlement, enclave, ghetto, district, or
what-have-you, is not removed like the homes of those in the traditionally upper
status but is usually located with convenient access to their clientele“ (p. 258).
This was certainly the case with Indians as opposed to the white power holders.
White power, especially economic power, was one step removed and difficult to

target. “Where white power was more plainly revealed, its very strength made

resistance costly and encouraged accommodation with it. Collective memories

172
included the armed suppression of the 1906 poll tax uprising in the Natal
countryside, and the police street shootings in Durban in 1929-30“ (Nutall, 1989,
p. 15).

The search for ever more land became a crucial issue in Cato Manor.
Power and finance came from access to property. Indian landowners were
barriers to the hunger for more land. The ideological disposition of the more
established African elite who sought to advance their interests through
segregationist rhetoric and anti-lndianism found a resonance with African
material Interests in the shacklands. “African“ areas “belonged“ to Africans and
should be the exclusive preserve for African accumulation.

The 1946 Act fueled the prevailing anti-lndianism. Clerical leaders used
their church bases to popularize the view that the 1946 Acts divided the city
between whites and Indians and pushed Africans to the periphery. Political
leaders did the same (Riots Commission, 1949, Evidence, pp. 224-242). Senator
Brookes, in his testimony, pointed out that the feeling among Africans that the
city was being divided between Indians and whites was exacerbated “by the
maps issued by the Natal Provincial Post-War Reconstruction Committee, which
colored European areas blue, Indian areas pink, and Native areas brown, and
allowed little in the way of Native areas“ (Riots Commission Report, 1949, p. 19).
In a very real sense to Africans, whose class positions ranged from those of
aspirant landowners to unemployed squatters, Indians generally seemed to be
favored by the 1946 legislation. The rabid anti-Indianism of the newly elected

National Party also received extensive media coverage. While many of the

173
squatters were illiterate, it was a common sight in the late 19403 for an
“educated“ African to be seen reading from a newspaper to a group gathered
round (NIO memo to Riots Commission, 11 March 1949).

Rider (1958-59) argues that where people in the status gap do not have
access to forces to protect them and where the social, cultural, and political
context of the status gap encourages aggression by the host community, “the
possibility of communal violence is endemic“ (p. 259). In the city center, the
looting of the shops and the powerlessness of the Indian shopowners to prevent
the looting provided a stimulus for the renewed attacks the next day. The “rules
of the riot“ developed the day before had been rapidly learnt: confine looting to
Indian shops to avoid the full deployment of white power.

The territorial aspect gave a distinctiveness to the rioting in Cato Manor.
As buses unloaded commuters, other forces were also at work. Gangs of
migrants moved in, ordinary residents of Mkhumbane grouped together, and the
shack leaders sent their impisinto battle. The vision of “New Africa“ encouraged
“a belligerent, vibrant concept of revenge. Revenge was to play a vital role in an
ideology that endeavored to create new institutions and levels of consciousness
that would enable Africans to transform their marginalized status in the city“
(Edwards, 1989, p. 13). It was in this context that one of the “mayors“ of
Mkhumbane, Esau le Fleur, was to tell the Commission of Inquiry into the Riots:
“I think [these killings] are justified-if you go into a snake’s hole and keep
prodding the snake, when the snake comes out he will bite you“ (Riots

Commission, Evidence, 1949).

174

For most Africans in Durban, struggles centered around gaining
permanent residence. Mkhumbane came to embody that struggle: “It was an
African city, Mkhumbane. It was not Thekwini, it was ours. That was what Cato
Manor was for“ (Interview with Mr. B. Mthethwe, quoted in Edwards, 1989, p. 77).
In Cato Manor, it was the Indian presence that was a threat to African
permanence. The 1946 Act earmarked Cato Manor for the exclusive use of
Indians. Indian Iandownership placed limits on the “mayors“ and squatters’
hunger for more land. Indian monopoly on trade made alternative forms of
capital accumulation difficult. Indian presence in Cato Manor was a barrier to the
ambitions of the shantytown residents. While the riots took the form of an anti-
Indian pogrom, a potential effect was to make Mkhumbane safe for an African
population whose status was constantly threatened by a state policy that refused
to recognize them as a permanent part of the city. After the riots, leaders of
Mkhumbane called on the City Council to recognize that Africans were the sole
authority in the area (MNAD; H 18/CM, Vol. 1; Sworn Affidavit of Mr. Esau
Makatini, 15 March 1949). A civilian guard was formed to control the newly won
area and to prevent any attempt by the police to enter the shantytown (KCAV;
interview with Mrs. A. Mzimela,'21 July 1982).

By the late 19403, the municipality appeared to shack residents to have
virtually accepted the permanence of the shacklands. As Cato Manor became
more and more densely populated, so it became less accessible to police. In any
case, police limited their operations to occasional forays. lntemal, unofficial

authority stnIctures emerged in the settlement. In one particular shack

175
community, a self-appointed headman exercised administrative authority by
letting sites. collecting rents, and taking on responsibility for the maintenance of
order (Durban Housing Survey, 1952, p. 377).

However, the continuing presence of Indian landowners and traders
threatened the future of the shantytown communities. The 1946 Indian Land
Tenure Act envisaged Cato Manor as being “given“ to Indians. Attempts to
ensure that as much of their own money should circulate within the shantytowns
as possible through stokvels and cooperatives came up against Indian trading
and other commercial ventures. For example, Indian-owned shops and
merchants effectively competed with African cooperatives through offering credit
facilities and in offering certain goods like paraffin or bars of soap, at vastly
reduced prices. Unlike the squatter leaders in Johannesburg, African leaders in
Cato Manor could not dominate access to trading licenses. Here the Indian
traders held sway and effectively used existing legal mechanisms to maintain
their monopoly.

In directly addressing the issue of whether the 1949 riots were anti-
apartheid or anti-Indian, we need to understand, following McPahil (1991, p.
185). that while people do behave collectively, what they do varies greatly in
complexity, In duration, and in the proportion of the gathering that actually
participates. The lunchtime attack on the Indian quarter on Friday was largely
limited to looting. While the action of some Iooters was described in some

accounts as that of a savage mob, other descriptions and material, such as a

176
lunch-hour photograph on Pine Street, where looting was occurring, show
Indians, whites, and Africans walking unalamied.

Pedestrians helped themselves to goods through broken windows. An

eyewitness observed a ricksha puller loading up his vehicle with

successive amiloads of women’s shoes. The unreality of it all provoked
laughter and heckling. Individual Indians were jostled on the pavements;

some were robbed of their Friday pay. (Nuttall, 1989, p. 22)

The rioters observed certain bounds, directed their aggression at specific
targets. and selected appropriate means for the ends they intended to obtain.
The fact that no deaths resulted from the direct action of the rioters is indicative
that certain bounds and limits were observed.

Seen in their general context, the 1949 riots had, as an underlying
influence, an attempt to gain full control over Cato Manor and so ensure African
permanence in Durban. In the immediate aftermath of the riots, a civilian guard
was formed to ensure that Cato Manor did not fall into the hands of any external
authority. Shantytown leaders also endeavored to compel the City Council to
accept the fact of Africans now controlling their own territory.

Oberschall (1968) argues that, in order to distinguish a riot from a revolt
or rebellion, we must examine what collective goals and demands are voiced by
the actors (pp. 340-341). If their actions are directed at overthrowing the
constituted authorities, ifpolitical demands are voiced such as the resignation of
certain leaders and officials, if an attempt is made to achieve physical control in
the area or territory by forcing out the existing authorities and substituting for

them other authorities, then one is dealing with a revolt, rebellion, insurrection,

or uprising. If, on the other hand, the main purpose of the action is to inflict

177

damage and/or injury upon certain groups or a category of persons, such as
police, merchants, or whites in general, then one is dealing with a not. While the
events in Cato Manor involved no intention to overthrow the government itself
and therefore stopped short of an insurrection or rebellion, following Smellie’s
definition of a riot in the EncyclopedjaoLSociaLSciences, it was more than just
a riot. There was an attempt to achieve physical control in the area by forcing
out the existing authorities (Indian landlords) and substituting for them other
authorities. The events in Cato Manor were part of African resistance to the
particular form which urban apartheid had taken in Durban.

The parallels between the 1949 riots and the attacking and looting of
Korean businesses in Los Angeles in 1992 are stark. After the Watts riots of
1965, Asian businesses moved into the south-central area, replacing Jewish
shopowners who had left. In the last ten years, Koreans have gained a virtual
monopoly of trade in the area, developing a Korean enclave.

The Los Angeles riots were sparked off when a suburban jury acquitted
four white Los Angeles police officers of beating a black motorist. When the
looting initially began, there were open calls from within the black community for
the looting and burning to happen in the white areas ofthe city. When a meeting,
called on Wednesday, April 29, by black leaders to formulate a political response
to the acquittals, heard that looting had begun a few blocks away, one speaker
implored. “Don’t do it in our community!“ People took up chants suggesting
alternative targets. “Beverly Hills!“ shouted one group (Meyerson, 1992, p. 23).

A black city fire inspector. Chauncey Hughes. who lives in West Adams, a

178
midcity neighborhood In the heart of the riot-tom area, told a news reporter:
“This may be sad to say, but most people here who were thinking about what
would occur were just hoping it would be taken outside the community . . . that
just once they would make them pay“ (IhefiuardianJNeelsly, 8—14 May 1992).

Unlike 1965, the riots reached beyond south-central Los Angeles.
However, the anticipated attacks on white residential areas did not come. The
riot rapidly moved up Western and Vermont Avenues, engulfing the stores of
Koreatown. About 600 Korean-owned retail outlets were damaged in the south-
central area and about 200 in Koreatown.

Lawrence Aubry, a member of the Los Angeles County Human Relations
Commission, argued that Korean merchants had become a visible lightening rod
forthe discontent of the black community. Blacks in Los Angeles, he pointed out,
have remained poor as, one after another, immigrant groups have arrived and
climbed past them to prosperity. “It’s illogical, but it’s convenient to target the
Koreans“ (Newlorklimes, 2 May 1992).

Koreans were more convenient targets. The white suburbs were more
remote and would be protected with more zeal. Korean shops were more
vulnerable both in terms of their location and police inaction. A Korean
businessman told a reporter that when shops were burning he called the police
every five minutes; there was no response (Wales. 2 May 1992).
Several young Koreans told Mike Davis that they were especially bitter that the
south-central shopping malls cOntrolled by Alexander Haagen, a wealthy

contributor to local politics, were quickly defended by police and National Guard,

179
while their stores were leisurely ransacked and burnt to the ground (Davis,
1 June 1992).

But it is notjust their visibility, vulnerability, and accessibility that explains
the looting and burning of Koreatown stores. Relations between blacks and
Koreans had been tense since the videotaped fatal shooting of a 15-year-old
black girl, Latasha Harlins, in 1991. The tension was exacerbated when a white
judge let the grocer off with a $500 fine and some community service. Davis
argues that since that judgment some ethnic explosion had been virtually
inevitable.

The several near-riots at the Compton courthouse this winter were early

warning signals of the black community’s unassuaged grief over Harlin’s

murder. On the streets of South Central Wednesday and Thursday, I was
repeatedly told, “This is for our baby sister. This is for Latasha.“ (Davis,

1 June 1992).

Hostility to Koreans was fueled by the charge that they were clannish,
alien, and inassimilable. This clannishness was picked up by Inder Singh,
chairperson, National Federation of Indian American Associations, who
remarked: “The violence in Koreatown could have been avoided had the Korean
Americans not isolated themselves to such a degree from the mainstream. Like
the Indians, they prefer to stay aloof“ (Indialodax, 31 May 1992).

f The riots took place at a time of deepening economic recession. During
times of economic hardship, middleman minorities become vulnerable to attack.
As Davis points out:

Culturally distinct“middleman“ groups—ethnic entrepreneurs and the like-

risk being seen as the personal representatives of the invisible hand that

has looted local communities of economic autonomy. In the case of Los
Angeles it was tragically the neighborhood Korean liquor stores, not the

180

skyscraper corporate fortress downtown. that became the symbol of the
despised new world order. (Davis, 1 June 1992, p- 746)

Evans and Novak argued, in the Washingtonfiost, that the riots confirmed
Professor Edward Banfield’s judgment in the 19603 that rioters were after “fun
and profit.“ Writer Jen Nessel argues that the riots had a political dimension:

There are people here and around the country saying that after the first

couple of hours it wasn’t political. Sure it wasn’t exactly “This CD player

Is for Rodney King,“ but a woman looting an arrnload of diapers that she

couldn’t afford to buy would suggest to me that the insurrection was

entirely political. Since when are poverty, unemployment, pent-up rage,

alienation and disenfranchisement not political? (Nessel, 1 June 1992, p.

747)

What is clear is that gangs looted in a well-organized way. Journalist
Martin Walker witnessed children with mobile phones coordinate the movements
of their gangs with the arrival of police and fire trucks, warning Iooters when
police were on their way (IbefiuaLdIanJALeelslx. 8-14 May 1992).

However, like the 1949 riots in South Africa, the riot in Los Angeles must
be seen in its broader dimensions. Along with Korean shops, black-owned shops
and shopping malls were looted and burnt. Walker is correct in attributing most
of the violence and looting

to have-nots against the haves, in the American city where the contrasts

between the vastly rich and the really poor are as sharp as in any Third

World capital. And many of the new fires were along the Santa Monica
freeway, a border zone where the ghetto leads into Hollywood and the

riches of Beverly Hills. (Ibefiuaufianfleelslx. 8-14 May 1992)

181
3.7 Inandaflfli

The media billed the 1985 violence as a repeat of 1949. However, the
1985 violence was different in a number of respects. It was more widespread,
stretching across all African townships. It saw African pitted against African in
a number of townships. New social groupings had emerged in the African
community, the comrades and warlords. These groups fought running battles
during the violence. However, when the violence reached Inanda, there was a
recurrence of African attacks on Indians. This aspect of the 1985 riots provides
an opportunity to examine another instance of violence in Indian/African

relations.

3.7.1 Qxemlemfibfliolence

The 1984-85 period witnessed the most sustained resistance to National
Party nile. Across the Cape, Vaal Triangle and East Rand, resident
associations, the UDF and unions coalesced to launch consumer boycotts and
mass stayaways. State-fostered local government collapsed as councilors
became targets of the resistance. By mid-March 1985, more than 10,000 people
had been arrested on unrest-related charges. For the month of April, official
sources recorded 1,549 unrest incidents. By July 1985, the violent resistance
that had begun in 1984 could count 350 homes of black policemen damaged or
burnt and 174 physical attacks on policemen.

Through this period, the massive black townships of greater Durban-

KwaMashu, Umlazi, and Inanda-Jemained relatively calm. Just as academics

began reaching for their word-processors to explain this phenomenon, Durban

 

182

exploded. As if to make up for the 18-month lag, the upsurge was ferocious.
Within seven days, scarcely a shop or government building in the sprawling
townships remained unscathed.

It was the assassination of UDF leader, Victoria Mxenge, that sparked the
violence in Durban’s townships. The violence, however, took particular forms in
different areas. In Inanda, the violence was directed against Indian shopkeepers.
landlords, and residents. In order to begin to understand why the conflict took
the form it did in Inanda, we need to understand the local history of the Inanda

area as well as of African-Indian relations in Durban.

3.7.2 HistomofJnandiErioLtothe
CatoManoLBemoxals

The name “Inanda“ has encompassed several different areas. Today it
is the officially demarcated “Released Area 33“ that is called Inanda. This area
consisted in the nineteenth century of three farms: Piesant River, Groeneberg,
and Riet River. By the 18703, ownership of farms in “Released Area 33“ was no
longer in the hands of producers. All the farms were acquired by individual or
company speculators. With colonial rule and the concomitant arrival of private
property, independent African producers were transformed into tenants, required
to pay rent in cash.

Indians who had completed their indentures began to seek land in Inanda
in the second half of the 18603. Many migrant Indians took advantage of the
indenture system, which made provision for the grant of land. This was a more

attractive option than a free return passage to India or the renewal of indenture.

183
Between 1860 and 1885, 26,954 indentured workers arrived in Natal from India,
but only 1,716 returned. The ovenivhelming number chose not to reindenture and
joined the ranks of the “free Indians.“

Freund (1991a) has recently shown that “between the phase of indentured
labor and the emergence of a large class of industrial workers much of the Indian
population went through a peasant phase of production, characterised by intense
market commitment and family labor exploitation“ (p. 263). This Indian peasantry
was to enjoy quick success. In Inanda, Indians were the main producers of all
crops other than sugar (Freund, 1991a, p. 268). With the main production unit
being the extended family, reliance on a paid labor force was minimal.

A number of commentators have pointed to easier access that Indian
simple-commodity producers had to credit vis-a-vis African cultivators. Hughes
(1987) has also pointed out that whereas Africans were charged rent per hut,
Indians were charged per acre. “The former could well have been more
expensive and restrictive. To bring more hands into the fields would have meant
more huts and therefore more rent—and after 1875, more hut tax“ (p. 337).
Increasingly, African tenants turned to intermittent wage labor in order to
maintain a presence on the land. This, however, further impinged on their ability
to compete.

African Iandownership in the Inanda area was limited. The Matiwane
family owned 281 acres. Dr. J. L. Dube purchased 200 acres in Piesang River.
In 1901 he set up the Christian Industrial School in the area that came to be

known as Dube’s Farm. Isaiah Shembe acquired a portion of the Piesang River

184
Farm. He called his settlement Ekuphakameni, which became the home of the
Amanazaretha religious sect (Hughes, 1987, p. 338; Sundkler, 1976). There
were those who owned smaller acreages, many of which consisted of small
stands.

The 1913 Land Act prevented African purchases in “white“ South Africa.
Faced with discriminatory legislation in town, Indian traders sought land outside
the municipal boundaries. Particularly restrictive was the Dealers’ Licences Act.
The Act made it difficult for traders to open “a new branch, to break a partnership
into its component elements, or to pass on a business to an heir. Also, “those
with property holdings were indirectly affected by the Act if persons leasing
business premises from them were refused renewal of license, and those with
debtors among the petty traders stood to lose if their debtors were forced to shut
up shop“ (Swan, 1985, pp. 68-69).

The shift to land purchases was not met with sympathy by African
landowners. lndians, after all, were unaffected by the 1913 Land Act. A member
of the Matiwane family remarked that “the Indians are not like the Natives,
because the Indians have the Imperial Authorities to look alter their interests“
(Hughes, 1987, p. 338).

The settlement of Indians increased sharply in Inanda. At the end of
1904, Mahatma Gandhi established his Phoenix Settlement in the area. By
1936, Indians constituted 52% of the population in the Inanda Division. In
Durban they made up 34% of the population, in Lower Tugela 33%, and in

Pietermaritzburg 12.5% (Buchanan 8 Hurwitz, 1949, p. 444).

185

In 1936, the Land Act designated Inanda a “released area.“ This meant
once the state had purchased the necessary land, Released Area 33 would be
incorporated into the neighboring African reserve. Expansion of Indian land
interests was curtailed, and it was to be “African landowners, entrepreneurs,
churches and those attached to power structures in the reserve who would
purchase land from Indian sellers“ (Hughes, 1987, p. 339).

The 19303 marked along period of agricultural stagnation that was to last
until the 19703. The number of Indian-owned farms reached 2,575 in 1920/21
and declined slightly to 2,545 in 1925/26. In 1945, 1,229 Natal Indian cane
growers farmed (and largely owned) 71,620 acres of land. The number was
1,604 in 1961, 1.835 in 1970/71, and 1,817 in 1979/80. Acreage was also
relatively stagnant. Growers farmed 68,485 acres in 1954, 56,992 in 1961, and
61,040 in 1970/71, with little further increase thereafter (F reund, 19913, p. 272).

It was estimated in 1975 that 81% of Indian farmers along the coast had
incomes of less than R1,000 per annum and 62% earned under R500. A survey
found one-third to be illiterate, with a limited ability to comprehend English
(Davies 8 Greyling, 1978, p. 35). Many farmers had to seek temporary wage
work In order to retain a foothold on the farm.

By the early 19503, it could be said that while independent farmers lived

better and had larger incomes than the declining number of Indian

fieldworkers on white-owned sugar farms, they earned less money under

harsher living conditions than the skilled and even semi-skilled workers

in the mills. (Freund, 19913, p. 275)

The discriminatory legislation that placed severe restrictions on Indian

Iandownership contributed to the agricultural stagnation. The Durban Land

186

Alienation Ordinance of 1923 was extended to the whole of Natal. This placed
strictures on the further acquisition of land by placing racial qualifications on
transfers. The 1946 Asiatic Land Tenure Bill placed restrictions on Indian land
purchase, and the Group Areas Act had the effect of Indians losing land.
Alongside this, while the state made a concerted effort to support white farming,
Indian farming interests were largely ignored. They were denied access to state
credit Institutions and, both in the recruitment of labor and buying of equipment,
were given no support. Marketing boards were exclusively white.

Freund (19913) points out that there was a second and probably more
important contributory factor to the stagnation-the actual course of capitalist
development. He argues that '

[fjor the majority of peasants. capitalisation of the land, the rising money

value of land, Itself directly squeezed the peasantry. The bind of poverty

would not have been loosed had more land simply been legally available.

The problem was rather that of the cost of improving the land and labor

conditions. lnexorably as land became more valuable and developed in

conjunction (necessarily) with state assistance, the smallholder became

more marginal. (p. 277)

There was another important stratum to the Indian peasantry: the market-
gardeners. Faced with the capitalization of land values, the competition ofwhite
farmers made competitive by state assistance for the transport of goods, and
discriminatory legislation, many market-gardeners in the 19203 and 19303 turned
to industrial work. Some were able to take advantage of the rapidly growing
African urban population during and after the Second World War. In the Cato

Manor-Mayville area, probably the area of the greatest concentration of Indian

Iandownership, market-gardeners turned to shack renting. There were richer and

187

easier pickings In farming peOpIe than vegetables. In 1958, the removal of
Africans to KwaMashu began. Despite violent protests in 1959 and 1960, the
removals continued. By 1966, the evictions were completed. Eighty-two
thousand people had been removed from the settlement. During this process,
Morris (1981) points out, some 30,000 to 40,000 people were unaccounted for.
Many of the missing were to make their way to Inanda. Some had no option
because they did not qualify for housing in KwaMashu; others found the
settlement not to their liking.

African squatters provided a lifeline for the market-gardeners of Cato
Manor in the 19403. It is ironic that their removal was to provide a lifeline for the

Indian landowners of Inanda.

3.7.3 IheExpansiouflnanda
The South African government has, especially in the post-1948 period,

made a concerted effort to control black urbanization, mainly through segregated
locations and influx control. By the early 19703, it was becoming increasingly
clear that this elaborate attempt at social engineering was being openly
breached. Beyond the formal system of planned residence, shack populations
numbering millions were springing up across the country (see Map 4).
According to Schlemmer (1985), the overall number of informal dwellings
around Durban between 1966 and 1979 increased by 137% (p. 169). He pointed
out that more recent research in a somewhat wider area of Greater Durban than
the 1979 demarcation estimated the number of informal units at 130,000,

housing 1,400,000 peOpIe. This meant that more than half the black population

 

188

 

   
    
 
 

W %////(e.
, '\/ / ////,/ ’ 5“

////W ““““““
// Ml/

f I /.
“Mu/ ’0' ./...

   
 

   
     
  

  

 

 

Map 4: Informal settlements around Durban in the mid-19803.

 

189

of the Durban functional region was housed in informal or shack settlements
(Schlemmer. 1985. p. 169).

Inanda, the country’s largest concentration of shackdwellers. was central
to this growth. Table 9 shows the increase in population between 1977 and
1985. This figure is also probably an underestimate. Jeffery (1990) estimates

the population of Inanda to have been over 660,000 in 1987.

Table 9
Population of Inanda, 1977-1985

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Year Population
1977 68.000
1979 80.000
1982 100,000-200,000
1985 250.000

 

 

Source: Hughes, 1987, p. 342.

3.7.4 Wanda

Numerous commentators have pointed to the fact that ”one of the more
noteworthy features of the situation of blacks in South Africa has been the rigidity
of their formal community dispensation and administration. . . . It is not far-
fetohed to speak of ’total system’ planning for blacks in their homes and working
lives In South Africa" (Schlemmer & Giliomee, 1985, p. 167). However, in the
squatter camps no administration existed to register residents, provide services

and urban infrastructure. and maintain the environment.

190

In Inanda the first two decades of growth took place without any formal
authority structure. The Durban City Council protested that Inanda falls outside
the Durban municipal area and therefore was not its responsibility. The fact that
"lnanda has for more than a century been used by the Durban economy as both
a labor reserve and dumping ground for the economically expired“ was
conveniently forgotten (Makhatini, 1991, p. 3). The state, on the other hand,
claimed that it was the onus of the landowners themselves to develop Inanda as
they were housing squatters for personal profit (Interview with Mr. Makhoba.
Chairperson of the Inanda Landowner’s Association, 29 February 1990; cited in
Makhatini, 1991, p. 3).

In the absence of a formal authority structure, considerable power fell to
shacklords. Makhatini (1991) has pointed out that tenants who paid annual rents
did this through an induna or caretaker appointed by the landlord (p. 2). If
monthly rent was paid. it was done directly to the landlord. Research conducted
by Wellings and Sutcliffe (1985) indicates that the landlord-tenant relationship
was much more complex.

Landownership in Inanda was also complex. Africans, Indians, and whites
owned land under freehold. The South African Department of Development Aid
possessed land administered by the KwaZulu government. Alongside this,
religious leaders owned land on which they developed villages fortheir followers,
and in other areas chiefs and headmen controlled the use of land.

Indian tenants numbered about 2,000. Most rented land from Indian

landlords. There was some racial mixing in these areas. Other areas such as

 

 

 

re.
25
Sis

Gd“

191
those under the KwaZulu administration were exclusively African. A large
number of Pondos had settled in the Piesang River and Bambayi areas. For
Pondos, squatter camps are their only alternative since they are ineligible for
township housing administered by the KwaZulu government.

Sutcliffe and Wellings (1985) point to the intricate tenurial structure that
underpins the complex demographic and social composition of Inanda. Three
different kinds of tenants are found in the area. Some tenants pay the landlords
a site fee for access to a piece of land. They then build their own house. Others
pay rent to the landlord for a room. F inally, there are subletters who pay rent to
the ”official” tenants (p. 9).

There also exist different kinds of landlords.

On the one hand, there exists a minority of landlords who actually

possess title deeds and who collect rent from all tenants living on their

property. On the other hand, there are a number of other ”landlords" who
do not actually legally own the land. Some landlords have, for example.

“bought” pieces of land without actually registering such transfers in the

deeds office. Other landlords simply control certain parcels of land.

These landlords collect rents from tenants as if they "own' the land. In

these cases the ”legal“ landlords are either absent or are the state.

(Sutcliffe & Wellings, 1985. pp. 9-10)

3.7.5 W

Given the fact that for two decades during its rapid growth Inanda was not
recognized by the authorities, it is not surprising that few facilities existed for its
250,000 people. The area contains no piped water, no electricity. no sewage

system, and no parks or recreation facilities. Access to health services and

education is limited.

192

A number of studies have contradicted the popular belief that squatter
communities were mainly homes to recent migrants from the rural areas. Mdller
(1978), in a sample of Inanda residents, found. for example. that 31% had
previously lived in rural areas, 35% had lived in the formal townships of Durban,
and 34% had previously lived in the informal townships surrounding Durban.

Sutcliffe and Wellings’ survey in 1985 reinforced Moller's findings. Their
study found on average that tenants spent almost nine years in their present
residence. When this is added to the two—thirds who had previously lived in the
greater Durban region. Inanda reflects a fairly stable community.

in looking at the demographic characteristics, it is noticeable that children
at school made up a relatively small proportion of each household (19%).
Sutcliffe and Wellings (1985) point out that the surveys indicate that the tenant
households were, in the main, not “families" in the normal sense of the word.
The households were often not “nuclear" familiar. nor were they “extended”
families. Rather, many households consisted simply of a number of (usually
adult) people brought together to be within easy commuting range of Durban (p.
33).

In Schlemmer’s (1985) study of squatter communities in the Greater
Durban area, he found that tenants had an average schooling of six years.
Those in the formal townships had an average of 11.4 and hostel migrants 1.5
(p. 174). The majority were semi-skilled or unskilled workers (Schlemmer, 1985.
p. 175). Sitas (1986) pointed to the high degree of youth unemployment in

Inanda that 'had created a bitter generation of young unemployed people. Even

 

 

Off

Qng

193
those in employment have oscillated over the last decade from enforced casual
labor in industry to the lower rungs of grading hierarchies—to be laid off first. due
to lack of experience with further economic hardships“ (p. 100).

Sutcliffe and Wellings (1985) found that 45% of the economically active
tenants were unemployed (p. 33). They point out that this high level of
unemployment is especially significant if one considers that:

1 . The opportunities for black work-seekers to find employment were
reduced as the recession intensified; and

2. Informal networks of mutual aid in shack settlements are not as well
developed as they may be in, for example, rural areas where extended families
play a significant role.

By the mid-1980s, household size averaged 9.5 (Sutcliffe & Wellings,
1985, p. 30). and there were 100 to 230 people per hectare (Hughes, 1987, p.
342). Sources of income through vegetables or small stock were curtailed or
ceased to exist altogether as the settlement expanded. For many in Inanda, the
situation was desperate.

in order to complete this overview of the social structure and social
relations in Inanda, we need to discuss the position of the traders and landlords

in the area.

3.7.6 Landlordsandlradfls
lndians, While Indian landholdings remained stagnant, the average size
of farms declined. The holdings of individual families were split in passing from

one generation to another. By the early 1960s, it was not uncommon to see

194

several strips or paths of land of various patterns. shapes, and sizes in
juxtaposition. Thus, Christopher (1965) comments that ”the main feature of
Indian farming is its small scale and tending towards fragmentation“ (p. 167).
There was an increasing turn to income beyond the farm. Rajah (1966). in a
study of agrarian patterns among Indians in the Inanda magisterial district, found
that only 27% of the 116 farmers surveyed depended solely on the farm for their
income.

Commenting on Indian Iandownership on the North Coast. Davies and
Greyling (1978) maintained that ”the land system constitutes a major problem for
the present and future physical and social development of Indian rural areas”
(Part One, p. 43). Many in Inanda were to turn to ”shack farming.“

Indian traders were also well placed to take advantage of accelerating
black urbanization. In the Lower Tugela and Inanda Magisterial Districts along
the North Coast. Indians dominated the commercial enterprises. Heath (1986)
found that of the 3,299 urban commercial licenses issued in the Districts. 46
(1.4%) were to blacks, 732 (22.2%) were to whites, and 2,521 (76.4%) were to
Indians. Heath also noted that

rural commercial enterprises show some clustering where there has been

marked subdivision of Indian or Black owned land and where ”informal”

settlements have developed. . . . Many of the rural Indian owned
enterprises are located close to the KwaZulu border in a “gateway”

location on a main through-route. In this way they are able to intercept
local trade from KwaZulu which might otherwise reach the large centers.

(p. 20)

195

Many of these rural enterprises with modest turnovers were transformed
by the new market. In Inanda itself, many of the large “shack farmers” were also
traders.

Africans. Leo Kuper pointed to the stratification that was taking place in
black communities in the 1950s and 19603. Despite this differentiation, the
destiny of Kuper's ”African Bourgeoisie” ”remained tied to the destiny of the black
majority“ (Sitas, 1986, p. 88). Given the fact that Kuper’s bourgeoisie was not a
fully fledged capitalist class, Sitas views them as a petit-bourgeoisie. With the
advance of monopoly capital there emerge two factions of this petit-bourgeoisie:
a “traditional“ petit-bourgeoisie consisting of traders and township businessmen
and a stratum of professionals. Durban's African traders

were shown to be anti-Indian, racialist and supporting the apartheid policy

of homeland independence and development. . . . They were a stratum.

an embattled and vulnerable segment of a petit-bourgeoisie trying to
monopolize an ethnic market in the midst of oppressive laws. restrictions

and competition. (Sitas, 1986. p. 88)

A. W. G. Champion, the ANC leader of the 1940s, reemerged in the 1960s as
a propagandist of this position. Hughes (1984) points out that Champion and
other African landlords and traders "couched their class protectionism in explicitly
anti-Indian terms“ (p. 4). Champion, a resident of Inanda. sought to remind the
residents of the area that "when Indians were very arrogant, the Africans took
sticks to them in 1949. . . . They beat them up and made them close their shops.

Yes, the enrichment of Africans from stores and buses started in 1949, it started

like that“ (quoted in Hughes. 1987, p. 4).

196

Following the passing of the Promotion of Bantu Self-Govemment Act of
1959. African petit-bourgeoisie interests sought a dominant share of the spoils
in Inanda. Champion welcomed the Act: “The Government today insists on
separation. The beauty of this policy to me is our obtaining a way to build up
Industries in the area where we live" (quoted in Sitas, 1986, p. 90).

Inanda being a ”released area” allowed the claim for exclusive African
advancement in Afrimn areas. By the mid-1980s, out of the 700 landowners,
500 were African. The landowners were organized into the Inanda Landowners
Association and the Piesang River Landowners Association.

African traders were organized into an association called Inyanda. After

initial hesitation, lnyanda joined Inkatha in August 1976.

3.8 W

Schlemmer, concluding his research on Inanda undertaken in 1983.
stated that “at this stage the shack-dwellers in the cou ntry's largest concentration
are very highly discontented because of the lack of. . . rudimentary services. but
they are far from militant.”

Sutcliffe and Wellings (1985), who had spent two months prior to the
violence conducting research into Inanda. found the transformation of Inanda
”into places where looting, violence and intimidation became the order of the day

. . was extremely rapid and almost beyond comprehension“ (p. 2). For
Makhatini (1991), “the 1985 violence directed against Indians and the visibly rich

is difficult to understand” (p. 4).

197
Despite these views, there had been a series of crises over the six years

prior to August 1985 that had heightened tensions in Inanda.

3.8.1 W
In 1979, most parts of Natal experienced a severe drought. Many in

Inanda began to feel the effects as they were dependent on streams and springs
for water. Water had to be bought for as much as R1.50 a barrel (Surplus
Peoples Project (SPP), Vol. 4: Natal. 1983, p. 391 ). An Indian shopkeeper sank
a borehole and began selling water (NataLMeLcury, 14 April 1979). The
authorities turned a blind eye to this mounting crisis.

When, not unsurprisingly, a typhoid epidemic broke out in Inanda, an
emergency committee was set up to organize water relief. The committee saw
its function as ”to defuse immediate problems and not to attempt any solution of
long-term problems" (SPP. 1983. p. 391). The Urban Foundation proposed a
scheme for a permanent water supply costing R2.5 million to implement (Daily
News. 28 March 1980). The scheme, however, did not receive the support of the
Department of Co-operation and Development (CAD). What the crisis did was
to force the Department of CAD to assume responsibility for Inanda.

3.8.2 WW
I Buildingotblewtown

The coming of the Department of CAD to Inanda began with a series of
removals. On 15 July 1980, the Department put forward proposals for a site and

service scheme on South African Development and Trust (SADT) land in RA 33.

198
The Urban Foundation, an organization funded by big business, was to offer
assistance.

Within five weeks the sites were surveyed and pegged dust roads
bulldozed, pit latrines with corrugated iron shelters dug on each site, and water
stand-pipes put in every 800 meters. Without prior consultation, residents in the
Amaoti area in the northeastern section of RA 33 were informed they could apply
for the site and service scheme that came to be called Newtown. By mid-August
1982, the scheme was reported to be full, with 25,000 divided into three sections.

In a SPP survey, it was found that many thought they would be moving
into a formal township. Some respondents said they were told they would be
given Section 10 rights if they moved. However, residents of Newtown had to go
through the labor bureau at Verulam or KwaMashu to get legally approved work.

Living conditions at Ematendeni (the place of tents), as Newtown came
to be known, were extremely poor. People were given a tent for six months, a
surveyed site, serviced with a latrine and a waterpoint nearby. Services in the
form of schools, recreational facilities, or street lights were nonexistent. Writing
in 1983, the SPP reported that

it does not seem that Inanda Newtown can be regarded as a pilot project,

testing ways and means of accommodating the other residents of informal

settlements In the area. It appears rather to have been a once-off
response by the central government to a crisis situation in which it was
facing mounting pressure from influential sources in the private sector to
act. As at New Crossroads in Cape Town, Inanda Newtown is to be
regarded as an exception and cannot, at this stage, be seen to represent

a fundamental breakthrough in either housing or influx control policies on
the part of the State. (p. 404)

199

What the removal to Newtown did do was to create tensions between
differing interest groups in Inanda. During the removals, a Liaison Committee
was set up by the Verulam Magistrate for RA33. The committee did not include
any of the people being removed. It did include KwaZulu MP and prominent
landowner, Rogers Ngcobo. For the landowners, the removals meant a loss of
tenants—tenants whom the state expected them not to replace. Mr. Ngcobo
opposed the committee on the basis that it had been selected before any
consultation. A new liaison committee emerged with Mr. Ngcobo as chairperson.

At the same time, a Residents' Committee was formed at Newtown. While
it is unclear how representative the body was, it soon came into a conflictual
relation with the Liaison Committee. During the SPP survey, it was rumored that
an attempt had been made on the Residents' Committee Chairperson’s life by
Mr. Ngcobo's ”men," since he was seen as a threat to Mr. Ngcobo’s power in the
area (SPP, 1983, p. 401).

3.8.3 WW

I | C . .

The state began evictions on SADT land in RA33. In mid-February 1982,
43 notices of eviction were given to families in Nhungwane in RA33. They were
given until April 1. On the day of the eviction, about 100 women picketed the
offices of the Verulam magistrate. After representations from the KwaZulu
government and PFP MP Ray Swart, a reprieve was granted. As the Chief
Commissioner of Natal bluntly put it, this did not mean a general reprieve:

“People who squat in Inanda Newtown could expect to be prosecuted ’as and

200
when they are discovered" (Sundaxlflbune. 4 April 1982). Through a series of

technical arguments, lawyers were able to win stays of evictions.

The state began to pressure Indian landlords to evict tenants. In October
1981, Indian landlords in Amaoti were told by the Department of Health to
provide services such as water and sanitation or evict their tenants. African
landlords did not receive the same notice. The SPP found that landlords were
being pressured by a threat from the Department of CAD that the land would
simply be bought by the SADT. The Commissioner at Verulam pressured one
Indian landowner to provide the names and reference book numbers of tenants
on the land (SPP, 1983, pp. 405-406). Some landlords succumbed and allowed
shacks to be razed by officials. The SPP commented at the time that these
“actions by Indian landlords exacerbate ill-feeling between tenants and landlords
in the area“ (SPP, 1983, p. 406).

The Indian landlords were caught in a difficult situation. They were being
asked to provide services at immense cost by the state, at precisely the time that
their own future was looking increasingly tenuous. While the landlords were
being asked to upgrade or evict, a plan for Inanda commissioned by the state
was receiving prominence. The plan involved the upgrading of squatter
settlements rather than their removal (Dailyflews, 14 April 1982).

The plan recommended that all land owned by non-Africans should be
expropriated and given to the KwaZulu government. The Report estimated that

326 Indian landowners would lose their properties (W. 8 June 1983).

201
A few landowners sold their properties before the violence. Many hesitated
because of the low prices offered.

We will go although we do not want to. We have been trading here since

1903 . . . but we want fair compensation. The only commercial land

offered to us is in the Phoenix complex and the price is so high that with

the compensation money paid we would not be able to even purchase the
site, let alone build premises and wait to develop new businesses.

(shopkeeper, quoted in Meer, 1985, p. 152)

At the beginning of 1984, newspapers reported that Indian landowners
were being molested, threatened, and victimized by African tenants. Under
banner headlines like ”Inanda Timebomb,” Indian tenants complained that they
were being assaulted (Waist. 26 February 1984). The
Department of Community Development received reports of the “acute possibility
of Indian women being raped." The government appealed to the Durban City
Council to rehouse the 4,500 Indians living in Inanda. The state was probably
keen to consolidate Inanda into KwaZulu. It would be a further step in the
development of the homeland system that the state was still wedded to. It would
also mean that capital would continue to have access to African labor without the
state having to concede Section 10 rights. The KwaZulu government was also
pressurizing the state to give it Inanda. This was one of the few areas
surrounding Durban that did not fall under its jurisdiction.

The removal of the Indian presence would smooth the process of
consolidation. However, the City Council refused to rehouse the Indian

residents. It argued that it already had a waiting list of 17,500 families, and the

Inanda residents were not its liability ([1313le 28 February 1984).

202

After initial publicity of the government plans for Inanda, not much was
heard. Sutcliffe and Wellings (1985) found in their research, however, that the
plan and subsequent developments gave rise to a number of rumors.

First, there was talk that the South African government was in the process
of selectively expropriating Indian land in the area and that this expropriation
might be extended to include African-owned land as well. There had, for
example, recently been a concerted move to buy out certain Indian shops and
landholdings in the area. When the African landowners approached Dr. L. Rive
(Chairman of the KwaZulu/Natal Planning Council) about this, he replied that
African-owned land would only be expropriated in order to improve the road and
water infrastructure.

Second, it was alleged that meetings had recently been held under the
auspices of Inkatha at which there were discussions around the question of how
to get the Indians out of Inanda so that the area could properly become part of
KwaZulu. While the allegation about Inkatha being behind such moves is
extremely difficult to verify, recent consolidation plans drawn up by a South
African govemment-appointed commission quite clearly support the incorporation
of parts of Inanda into KwaZulu.

Third, during the unrest we heard of a meeting of certain African
landowners and shopowners on the weekend preceding the unrest (27 July
1985). The specific purpose of the meeting was to discuss how to get Indians
out of Inanda. It was suggested to us that an African landowner was behind

these moves, presumably to set himself up as Mayor when the area became a

203
proclaimed township, and to ensure that he was well poised to monopolize
commercial undertakings in the area.

And fourth, there was some dissatisfaction being expressed that officials
of the South African government were saying one thing to Inanda people and
doing another. This was especially true in the case of people forced to move
because of the building of the Inanda dam. In terms of the conditions laid down
by the KwaZulu government in agreeing to the removals, "those removed should
have a choice of resettling in lnanda's RA33. in other KwaZulu tribal areas their
land might result in a similar uprooting for them" (Sutcliffe 8 Wellings, 1985, p.
13).

By the mid-1980s, there were deep divisions within Inanda. The next

section provides a detailed look at these divisions.

3.9 lnandafirttmgmjhelrmefiomb

A number of lines of division ran through the community. The most
prominent was the relationships between African tenants/consumers and Indian
landlords/retailers, and between African and Indian landlords/retailers.

3.9.1 IenantsLConsumemndJndian
LandlordslBetailers

The aftermath of the Soweto uprisings saw the first substantial attempt by
the state to revamp apartheid policy. The Riekert strategy adopted in 1979 was
based on the premise that a clear distinction could be drawn between urban and
rural Africans. Urban ”insiders” would supply industry’s need for a more skilled

and productive workforce. Rural ”outsiders” would be sealed out of urban labor

204
markets and confined to the bantustans. Upward occupational mobility would
lead to social stratification within the urban African population, and labor market
controls would differentiate more sharply between "insiders“ as a whole and
"outsiders.”

In the Durban context, Inanda residents would fall into the latter category.
Residents with Section 10 rights had preferential access to jobs in the major
cities/towns and better provision of services. Section 10 rights were mainly
restricted to those in formal townships inside ”South Africa.” ”Squatters“ in
Inanda would have found it increasingly difficult to break into the job market.

The worsening position of the “outsiders” was exacerbated by changes
in the labor market in the 19703 and 1980s. Hindson (1991) argues that this
period saw the rising skill and wage composition of the employed workforce,
accompanied by occupational and residential stabilization (p. 231). Alongside
this, one had growing unemployment and the permanent exclusion of increasing
numbers from the wage economy. It was those in the squatter camps with
limited skill and educational levels who bore the bmnt of these developments in
the labor market.

It Is not sUrprising, given the above context, that Sitaw (1986) estimated
unemployment In Inanda to be approximately 40% to 50% of the economically
active population. Caught in a web of poverty, meeting rental payments became
increasingly difficult. Landlords turned to coercion to collect rents. In the
absence of any local government in Inanda, landlords/retailers wielded immense

power. Organizing to resist the repressive tactics of the landlords was difficult.

205
In the formal townships, residents experienced the landlord as a collective entity
(the local government). By contrast, Inanda residents’ relation to landlords was
individualized to small groups of households and individual landlords.
Organization to redress grievances is much more difficult in the individualized
cases.

Informal sector activity (one of the few avenues open for those
permanently excluded from the wage economy) also found it difficult to survive
competition with the Indian retailer. The retailer could buy in bulk and sell on
credit. In any case, those involved in the informal sector probably did their
purchasing from the local retailer.

The State also deepened lines of fracture between Indian landlords and
tenants by forcing them to provide services or evict tenants. This was done at
a time when the State was touting a plan to expropriate Indian-owned land. It is
significant that the State did not call on African landlords to provide services.
The State was keen to draw Inanda into KwaZulu. The National Party’s attempt
to modify apartheid policy in the wake of the Soweto uprisings did not go beyond
the premises of territorial apartheid. It was believed that urban Africans would
accept marginally strengthened local government structures while casting their
votes as citizens in one or the other of the bantustans. Rural ”outsiders“ were
still to be accommodated (economically and politically) within the bantustans. It
wanted to achieve the consolidation of “black spots” into the bantustans with as
little expense as possible. In Inanda the cost of consolidation would involve

compensation to 326 landowners. The State did acquire two portions of land in

206
the Piesang River area from Indian owners (Urban Foundation, 1980, p. 16).
However, it did not continue this process, probably finding the exercise too
exorbitant.

The relationship that came to be established between landlords/retailers
(mostly Indian) and tenants/consumers (mostly African) was one in which the
landlords-cum-retailers wielded a significant amount of power in the area, and
specifically over the conditions of life of their tenants. Often the landlords
threatened the very presence of the tenants in the area. When the opportunity
arose to remove the position of the landlords, it was taken. This power is
reflected in the SPP survey cited earlier, which enquired into the reason for
moving to the site and service scheme at Newtown. One of the things that
appeared to be attractive about the new scheme was that tenants would be able
to escape 'fussy' landlords. Many tenants reported that the landlords had a
”dictatorial" attitude to them and tried to control their daily lives. What emerges
clearly in the survey material is that tenants found themselves subject to the
whims of the landlord. “Here there is the prospect of building our own house.
Where we were, we were going to remain lodgers for the rest of our lives,“ said
one of the respondents in the SPP (SPP, Volume 4, 1983, p. 396).

There was no real community of interests between Indian and African
tenants. When African residents found employment, it was at the lowest rungs
of the employment hierarchy. The majority of people employed in the formal
sector were semi-skilled nonmanual laborers (Urban Foundation, 1980, p. 32).

Indian workers, unfettered by legal constraints and with better educational levels,

207
also had increased chances not only of finding a job but also of moving up the
job hierarchy. Often Indian tenants were seen to be favored in their relationship
with Indian landlords. In any case, many of the 2,000 or so Indian tenants bore
some familial relation to the landlord.
3.9.2 lndiamandflflmLanleLds

andfietailers

Indian and African landlords and retailers did not develop any “alliance of
interests.“ Rather, the relationship was competitive and often antagonistic.
Africans were restricted from acquiring more land through the provisions of the
1913 Land Act. lndians, their own attempt to expand within the confines of
central Durban curtailed by legislation, began to turn to places like Inanda.
”Protected“ from competition by Africans, Indians were able to expand their
landowning and trader interests.

When the Influx of squatters started in the early 1960s, the African petit-
bourgeoisie wanted a share of the market. They saw the Promotion of Bantu
Self-Govemment Act of 1959 as a means not only to break into the lucrative
market provided by the squatters but also as a weapon to completely wipe out
Indian competition. For this to happen, Inanda needed to be consolidated into
KwaZulu. However, this did not happen because the central state claimed it did
not have the finance to purchase land from lndians, a prerequisite for
consolidation.

The affiliation of lnyanda (a traders’ association) to Inkatha brought a new

dimension into the fray. Inkatha over the years had failed to make any inroads

208
into Inanda (the UDF by August 1985 had no substantial presence either).
Incorporation would be a quick 'fix” to this problem as policing and local
government functions would fall into the hands of the KwaZulu government.
Here the Interests of lnyanda and Inkatha coalesced. Incorporation would
remove Indian competition at one go.

Inkatha brought in a particular strand of ethnic politics. For Inkatha, the
affiliation of lnyanda was one more brick in the building of the Zulu nation. The
interests of the Zulu nation had to be weighed up against the interests of the
Indian "nation.“ Buthelezi was prone to using the ethnic card. He had accused
the UDF of being manipulated by Indians. When criticized by students at the
University of Durban-Westville (a predominantly Indian institution at the time), he
reminded Indians of what had happened in 1949. Mare and Hamilton (1987)
point out that racism and racial stereotyping had emerged in KwaZulu and
Inkatha politics at different times (pp. 151-152). Thus, Buthelezi, in an obvious
reference to the Natal Indian Congress, argued that there is "an African level [of
fighting apartheid] whose dynamics can only be grasped by Africans,” and that
“Africans resent being seen just as a mass of brown, that must be guided by the
brains of other race groups.” Chief Sithole told the KwaZulu Legislative
Assembly (KLA) that ”when the Congress (ANC) was composed only of Africans,
there were no problems, but that the trouble started when different nations were
allowed to join. We must be wary of these Indians because they want to use us
as their tools, as a ladder for them to reach their goals.” This ethnic chauvinism

was particularly inflammatory given the fragility of social relations in Inanda.

209

The state meanwhile was arguing that it could only support development
if Indians moved out. This would allow for land to be incorporated into KwaZulu.
Indian tenants were keen to move, but only if they were given access to
subsidized state housing. Indian landlords and shopkeepers demanded
adequate compensation.

Thus, the KwaZulu government, the central state, and African business
interests had a stake in the removal of Indian presence. It is hardly surprising in
this context that at a meeting called by the Inanda Liaison Committee on 25 or
26 July 1985, a speaker called for Indians to be driven out since they had refused

to sell the land and were blocking development (Meer, 1989, p. 154).

3.9.3 IbeL’Snark’LtoLtheMolencs-z

On 1 August, a prominent UDF leader, Victoria Mxenge, was assassinated
outside her house in Umlazi. Protesting the assassination, a school strike and
boycott spread out of Umlazi and engulfed KwaMashu, Clerrnont, Lamontville,
and Inanda in quick succession.

While the spark that set off the spiral of violence was the assassination,
the form that the violence took displayed a significant degree of specificity in the
different areas. In Inanda, gangs of youths began threatening Indian
shopkeepers, landlords, and residents. The threats gave rise to mass panic.
When on 6 August, two Indian-owned shops and houses were looted and burnt,
hundreds of Indians left Inanda and sought refuge in the adjoining Indian
township of Phoenix. By the end of the week, 42 Indian-owned shops and

businesses and as many houses were destroyed, while 2,000 Indian refugees

210
pondered their future in Phoenix. The media and many in the Indian community

billed Inanda 1985 as a repeat of the 1949 riots.

3.10 lnandazAugusuflfifi
On the night of 5 August, a group of youths besieged the house of a

policeman in Ntuzuma, a township adjacent to Inanda. The policeman fatally
shot one of the youths. "The following, the ’rolling strike,’ now enraged, reached
lnanda” (Hughes, 1987, p. 348). That afternoon the looting of Indian-owned
shops began. This pattern was to continue through Wednesday and Thursday.
An eyewitness reported that on Wednesday "at about 1 pm. a mob besieged the
Phoenix Cash Store and looted it once the owner, Ebrahim Jeebhai, left. They
went on a kilometer further to loot Laljeeth Rattan’s store and then into two Indian
homes” (Meer, 1985, p. 155). Ranjith Rammarain was informed on Wednesday
that family and friends were trapped in Inanda. An initial rescue attempt was
repulsed by a stone-throwing crowd. Fully armed, he made a second, more
successful attempt by “riding shotgun” in a truck: ”It had been a rough ride. It
was frightening because at Ntuzuma crossing we were stoned and then when we
got to Inanda near Cassim’s store it happened again” (NW 7 August
1985). The scene that greeted Rammarain when he got to Inanda was the
burned-out shells of buses and cars still in their parking lots. Rammarain’s own
house lay in ruins. The only thing left untouched was the temple in the yard, with
the red flag dedicated to the Hindu god, Hanuman, still adorning the roof.
Another family told of how they begged a military contingent to give them

protection while they moved their family and some of their belongings. The

21 1

military refused. “They did not even get off their vehicles and left after stopping
by for about two minutes.” The family managed to get away. The next day,
Thursday, at about 1:30 pm, when members of the family returned to collect
what remained, they saw the Casspirs (military vehicles) stationed in front of the
shop, but when a building opposite was about to be attacked by a mob, the
Casspirs disappeared. The shop was burnt soon thereafter. It seemed to them
that the Casspirs were almost protecting the crowds in their burning and looting
(Meer, 1985, p. 159).

As over a thousand Indian refugees made their way into Phoenix, tensions
and anger heightened in the sprawling township. On Friday, 9 August, armed
groups massed on both sides of the Inanda/Phoenix divide "spoiling" for a fight.
While the confrontation did not materialize, both sides followed each other in
ransacking and ultimately destroying the Ghandi Phoenix Settlement-a shrine
of peace. As Hughes (1987) comments:

The tragic symbolism of the burning of the Ghandi Settlement went far

beyond the immediate act of the violent destruction of a “place of peace.”

It signified also the void of political organizations and ideas on all sides of

the Group Areas divide, which would have allayed, or at least toned down,

the confrontations. (p. 350)

It is tragically ironic that it was at the Settlement that "peace camps” had been
held to bridge racial divides in the early 1970s.

3 While the drama unfolded at the Ghandi Settlement, a new factor had
entered the fray. A resident in Ntuzuma reported on Friday the 9th that Inkatha

supporters armed with sticks were going house to house, trying to persuade

people to join them. “They are taking anybody. They say there are people they

212
want to kill” (Dailyflms, 9 August 1985). Inkatha impis armed with spears
began to engage UDF-aligned youth In KwaMashu and Umlazi. By Saturday
they had seized control.

The Lindelani impiwhich had tamed Kwamashu now turned their attention
to Inanda. The imp/2 however, met with sustained resistance. A series of attacks
was beaten off by Inanda residents. Many in Inanda turned against Inkatha since
the attacks were carried out in Its name.

On Sunday (the 12th), Inkatha called a meeting to establish peace in the
Phoenix and Inanda areas. About 5,000 Inkatha supporters and 100 Indians
attended the meeting. Oscar Dhlomo, General Secretary of Inkatha, told the
meeting that Inkatha had taken control of the townships in order to put an end to
the violence, to protect property, public buildings, and businesses (Sitas, 1986,
pp. 111-112). The last incident of violence in Inanda, identifiable as part of the
August upsurge, came exactly a week after it had all begun. On Tuesday, 13
August, the burnt bodies of three Indian men were found on the Phoenix/Inanda
border. They were all from the same family: a father, his son, and his brother-in-

law (Hughes, 1987, p. 351; Jacobs, 1985, p. 6). This brought the death toll to 70.

3.11 Analysis of the 1985 yiolence
3.11.1 menus»:
South Africa’s black townships were engulfed in mass action and political
violence throughout 1985. Durban’s townships were relatively quiet, seemingly
out of 'sync” with the patterns of conflict in the rest of the country. The singular

explanation, touted by the media, for this situation was the moderating influence

213
of the Inkatha movement (Sitas, 1987, p. 86). In August, all this changed.
Durban’s townships exploded, leaving some 70 dead and over 1,000 people
injured. The violence in Inanda needs to be understood in the context of the
general conflict in Durban’s townships.

There were two broad phases to the violence. The first phase, involving
mainly students, was a direct response to Victoria Mxenge’s assassination. The
second was a violent response to the protests from within Inkatha ranks.

In the first phase, beginning on Monday, 5 August, schoolchildren, mainly
in KwaMashu, Umlazi, Clerrnont, and Lamontville, began moving from school to
school recruiting pupils to join the protest. They were joined by hundreds of
youths not at school or unemployed.

This initial phase displayed both an angry and euphoric mood. Sections
of these vast processions were visibly angry about the assassination and were
completely defiant towards police presence; sections were also chanting and in
good humor and were inviting everyone to join them (Sitas, 1986, p. 105).

The focus of the protests was homeland government or other quasi-
political targets. In Umlazi, the Administration Building of the KwaZulu
government was burnt Numerous attempts were made to burn down
policemen’s houses. Many of the dominant trader/councilor businesses were
also attacked. Leading Inkatha member, Wellington Sabelo’s shop was attacked
in Umlazi. The local post office was also destroyed.

In KwaMashu, a crowd of 2,000 to 3,000 tried to attack the KwaMashu

shopping complex, where many of the major township Interests (and big

214
business chain stores) reside, but were dispersed by police. A shopping center
In Ntuzuma was razed to the ground. Schools and school principals were
attacked; cars that were too “posh“ and vehicles with business logos were
hijacked and often burnt.

By Thursday afternoon, Inkatha began to mobilize to gain control of the
townships. Students, already in some disarray from the vicious response of the
police, were no match for lnkatha’s impis. In the larger townships of KwaMashu
and Umlazi, Inkatha was quickly able to assume control.

In Inanda, events were somewhat different. Protesting pupils were joined
by gangs of youths who began threatening Indian shopkeepers and residents
that they would burn their property and houses. Some 1,000 Indians left their
homes and sought refuge in the Indian township of Phoenix. Many of the shops
and houses after their abandonment were then looted and burnt. Inkatha found
Inanda very difficult to subdue. Numerous attacks were repulsed through
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. It was only on Sunday that Inkatha impiswere

able to march Into Inanda.

3.11.2 Qnmnnsiflnnnnhnfiintnrs

Central to the 1985 violence were the youth (later known as the comrades
movement) and the impis led by warlords who attempted to return "law and
order" to the townships. This section looks at the social origins of both groups.

3.11.2.1 Wm. Sociologist Ari Sitas (1991) points
out that through the influence of the media, the word “comrade” conjured up

images of unemployed black youth with no future, no hope, busy destroying

215
everything in their way (p. 1). The media picture is of young men, hungry men,
with hardened features and red eyes-exactly what happens to the myth of a
primal Africa when a patriarchy collapses and the age-sets run loose: a new
version of barbarism. The 'older” version, Inkatha, strikes back.

Sitas argues that one cannot equate "comrades“ with unemployed black
youth. Sitas’s Interviews with more than 200 members of the comrades
movement in Natal revealed that while most comrades are young (under 35
years of age) and come from embattled working-class households, among the
phenomenon one will find full wage-eamers, informal sector vendors, university
graduates, political activists, schoolchildren, shop stewards, petty criminals, and
Iumpenproletarians. Seventy-two percent ofthe youths came from working-class
households; 15% came from a lower-middle-class stratum of civil servants,
businessmen, and traders; 6% came from professional middle-class
backgrounds; and 6% came from no households whatsoever, but had existed
since their early years in the streets.

The ages ranged from 14 to 31: 60% were under 18 years old, 24% were
under 24, and the rest were over 24. Only 6% were women, all over 18 and
under 24. Most of the under-18s were or were supposed to be at school. Most
of the rest were unemployed (53%) and/or casually employed (21%). (Of these,
65% had the US. equivalent of Grade 11 or Grade 12.) A smaller grouping was
made up of those working in factories and shops and in the commercial and
distributive sector (13%); 8% were tertiary education students, and 5% were

clerks or trainee managers.

216

The comrades movement possessed a diversity of constituents. At one
end of the spectrum, one could find a 14 year old who grew up in a harsh
environment, abandoned by parents and raised by youth gangs, an expert
survivor and petty criminal; and a 27 year old, ex-COSAS, Fort Hare fine art
graduate, semi-employed democratic-socialist intellectual. In between, there is
a union shop steward, a sprinkling of young mass-production workers, and a
mass of unemployed.

The 1985 violence saw the comrades movement pitted against Chief
Buthelezi’s Inkatha, the KwaZulu homeland structure, and the central state.

3.11.2.2 Waflntdiandm. Impis allied to Inkatha were central to the
attempt to turn back the comrades movement that was sweeping across the
townships. The most conspicuous of the impis were from Lindelani, led by
Thomas Shabalala. Shabalala was typical of the warlords who controlled the
informal squatter areas around Durban.

Warlords arose in the absence of any formal structure in the squatter
camps. The local strong man organizes his own vigilantes to curb the crime in
his area. To pay his vigilantes he creates a tax base from rents or a household
levy. Minnaar (1992) points out that, eventually, such an urban warlord needs
either to protect himself from rivals or keep the KwaZulu government from
interfering in his activities, so he opts for some sort of recognition by formally
joining Inkatha (p. 3). The various warlords tend tojoin Inkatha mainly because
In KwaZulu this relationship is based on a quidpro qua—as a reward for being left

alone, they will undertake to deliver a certain number of men for Inkatha rallies

217
and also provide ”soldiers” for any fighting that needs to be done. They
sometimes bus vigilantes to other warlords who might need assistance or
organize vigilante attacks on UDF/ANC strongholds.

Shabalala was elected spokesman for the peOple of Lindelani in 1984. He
also became the chairman of the local Inkatha branch and later KwaZulu (KLA)
MPfor Lindelani and , eventually, an Inkatha Central Committee member. When,
in 1983, he moved into the area that later became known as Lindelani, he formed
what he called his “community guard force" since there were no street lights or
police station in the area. Residents of Lindelani claim they have to pay R20-00
a month (some say R3-00 for 'rent” and R5-00 to cover the costs of the
township’s police, the rest for other charges such as water and Inkatha
membership dues) for living under the protection of Shabalala’s private army.
Over and above his regular force of guards, Shabalala often calls on male
residents for guard duties to protect his house or patrol the streets of Lindelani
at night. The young people are “asked” to attend meetings on a regular basis for
the purpose of securing the ”correct social and moral behavior of the children“
(Minnaar, 1992, p. 12).

It was Shabalala’s impis who led the counter-reaction to the comrades,
taming KwaMashu and attacking Inanda.

Both sides of the political spectrum had similar ideas on the composition

of the rioters. The NIC/UDF blamed the violence on ”thugs and hooligans”

(Sundaylflbuneflnrald, 18 August 1985). Oscar Dlomo, then general secretary

218
of Inanda, saw the violence as the work of “faceless criminal agents and as
examples of ’hooliganism and lawlessness" (NataLEQsI, 14-17 August 1985).

While it is true that criminal elements had their day in the violence, the
core of the protesters were the youth who were later to coalesce into the
comrades movement. Their targets were specific: homeland government
buildings and Its leadership, business interests, ”agents of the system“ like
policemen and rich people made conspicuous by their consumption patterns in
areas of widespread poverty and squalor. One sees the parallels between
Dhlomo’s characterization of the protectors as “faceless criminal agents” and the
media picture of young men, hungry men with hardened features and red eyes
with the irrationalist position of seeing the crowds as being criminal by nature,
and as an 'evil force, a terrible serpent whose segments are composed of
subjugated beaten—down men" (T arde, 1893; cited in Applebaum 8 McGuire,
1986,p.32)

The protesters were to form the core of the comrades that was to develop
into a full-scale social movement in the region. Sitas (1991), in his research,
found that comrades were bound together by a leveling idea (pp. 6-8). They
distinguish themselves from those, for example, with cars or money who are able
to flee their Iowlity. They obey the codes of a metaphor. they are the soldiers
of the liberation movement, and a militarization of their subculture is endemic.
Between the leveling idea of belonging to the “have nots" and the mllitarized
culture of resistance, there is a cultural formation that is about "style” in everyday

common behavior. You belong because of the way you sing, the slogans you

 

219

know, the lineages you have learnt, the way you speak to each other. Among
comrades are not only the fighters. There are, too, the thinkers and the resource
people. Leaders range from worker leaders to ex-Robben Island prisoners,
student militants, university graduates, and hundreds of unemployed youth.
“Resource” peOple include church workers and criminals. In 1985 the comrades
had not achieved organizational or ideological coherence. However, particular
symbols were being targeted, and it is probable that the protesters consisted of
the diversity that was later to emerge as the comrades movement. While the
protesters of 1985 had many "faces,” it is clearly incorrect to categorize them as
”faceless criminals.“

Similarly, one cannot simply label the imp/s as “thugs and hooligans” or
another example of "the smouldering passion inhabiting the Zulu soul which the
veneer of civilization has barely dampened” (IbejlataLWitness, 20 January
1949). The lmpis were acting at the behest of the warlords. It has already been
argued that because of the absence of legal and administrative regulation,
violence is inscribed in the very relations of reproduction of the shantytowns.
Morris (1992) has pointed out that peaceful coexistence between different
squatter leaders. shantytown warlords, or lieutenants is necessarily a transient
phenomenon, for each is driven by a compelling force to expand his territory and
range of tenants at the expense of the other. Warlord intervention in the 1985
violence was driven by two objectives: putting down the challenge to Inkatha and

extending their own sphere of influence.

220

In Inanda, events were different from Cato Manor of 1949. In Inanda, it
was only after most of the Indians had left that the burning and looting took place.
In the initial violence, it was only Indians who were targeted. There were
powerful interests that would have liked the Indians thrown out of Inanda—the
central government and the KLA. African landowners and shacklords were also
keen to buy out Indian property. However, there is no evidence that the initial
threats made by youth were done at the behest of any organized interests.
Indian shopowners were probably seen as the most vulnerable sector in the
community. Once they responded to the threats by fleeing, the looting and
burning took on their own momentum. Unguarded shops in a context where the
forces of law and order are nonexistent are difficult to resist. Where there is a
general upsurge, it is probably impossible, especially where the owners have fled
the area. Youth were joined in the looting by unemployed adults, old people, and
workers.

Most commentators have argued against seeing the violence as being
anti-Indian. Meer’s position in this context has been mentioned. Similarly,
Sutcliffe and Wellings (1985) argued that

Prior to the unrest, no deep-seated racist or anti-landlord sentiments

existed in the Inanda area. Thus, we believe one cannot build a model of

the unrest which paints it as an African-Indian confrontation. Such
simplistic analysis only lends credence to the racist explanations provided
by the South African government and its mouthpiece, the South African

Broadcasting Corporation. (p. 40)

However, many factors dopoint in the direction of anti-Indian sentiment.

These include: the simple observation that Indian property was largely targeted

in Inanda while that of African ”businessmen” was not; this compares to the

221

situation in the rest of Durban’s settlements at the time where African-owned
businesses bore the brunt of the attacks; the attacks on the Gandhi settlement;
the battle lines which formed between Phoenix and Inanda, with Indian vigilantes
arming themselves in preparation for an attack on Phoenix; and the fact that
African warlords rapidly moved in to take control over Indian-owned land, and
that there was never any attempt to reinstate the Indian landowners.

However, one cannot argue that the rioters were all similarly imbued with
an anti-Indian consciousness. We need to try to differentiate between the rioters.
The youth, who marched through KwaMashu, Ntuzuma, and into Inanda and
were joined by the youth there, had singled out apartheid agents and symbols
of privilege as targets. In Inanda, while there were Indian and African landlords,
Indians dominated the commercial enterprises. These were the immediate
symbols of privilege that were attacked. When the students were routed by the
police, they lost control of the situation. It was then that the Iumpen youth from
Inanda moved in. Prior to the violence, levels of crime were very high. Most
shops were heavily encased in iron grilles at night, and a few of the larger Indian
homes enclosed by high barbed wire fencing and, after dark, in glaring spotlight.
Gangs had moved into the area and cornered areas of influence for themselves.
Hughes (1987) quotes one commentator as referring to the gangs as "social
bandits turned blood-suckers-some at least may be traced back to Cato Manor
days” (p. 343). The abandoned Indian shops and homes became easy targets
of opportunity for these organized “bandits.” Unexpected opportunities also

arose for ordinary residents. Meer (1989) describes one such event:

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We spoke to Beatrice, who has taken over the Govender house—six very

dark rooms with a veranda. She had rented a room from them for the last

fifteen years. That she had been close to them was reflected in her
distinctly Indian-accented English. She said she was a member of

Inkatha. “When they came to attack, I hid the Indians and I told them that

this was my house.” After the mob left, the Indians took what they could

carry and went away. She says she will buy the house now because the

Govenders will not come back. (p. 50)

Many unemployed adults, old peOpIe, and workers joined in the looting.

The Inkatha counterattack was planned. Buthelezi made his intentions
clear: ”There was no way in which they would accept being terrorised by other
blacks aided and abetted by misguided children and their thugs” (Sitas, 1987, p.
109). The real organized violence came from Inkatha impis. On Thursday the
8th, Inkatha began to mobilize. Hundreds of impis began scattering groups of
youth and conducting house-to-house searches for stolen goods. KwaMashu,
Ntuzuma, and Umlazi were brought under control. In Inanda, Inkatha warlords
subdued the youth and criminal elements and began to take the place of the
absent Indian landlords.

The interests of the warlords and Inkatha coalesced. The warlords were
attracted by the possibilities of pecuniary gain and personal power. Inkatha was
keen to extend its influence into Inanda and see off Indian landlords as this would
facilitate the consolidation of Inanda into KwaZulu.

While African merchants/landlords clearly had a stake in the removal of
their Indian counterparts, they did not take an active part in the violence. The
African landlords were, of course, in an invidious position. They had not

wholeheartedly supported incorporation into KwaZulu because they were worried

that their own land would be threatened in a consolidation program.

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Once warlords had settled in, they began to move against those interests
that were opposed to incorporation. African landlords were forced to flee or
support Inkatha. Youth, civic, and church organizations were violently repressed.
According to Makhatini (1991),

Warlords presented themselves as Inkatha representatives to people.

They recruited and collected Inkatha subscriptions. They were said to be

lobbying the KwaZulu government to negotiate with the central

government for the incorporation of these areas Into KwaZulu, which
would ensure permanence of the squatters and their own perpetual
power. They traveled to Ulundi and returned with promises of aid from

KwaZulu if enough people joined the Inkatha organization. (p. 8)

In spite of the existence of criminal gangs who looted, the behavior of the
majority of Iooters lends itself to sociological explanation in terms of theories of
collective behavior in riot situations. It has been suggested by Quarantelli and
Dynes that looting can be seen as a rather violent beginning to a process of
collective bargaining concerning rights and responsibilities of certain
communities. Looting, they argue, is an index of social change. It is also an
instrument of societal change. They suggest that the pattern of looting passes
through roughly three stages in a rioting situation. First, there is a primarily
symbolic looting stage where destruction rather than plunder appears to be the
intention. Then a stage of conscious and deliberate looting begins. Finally, there
is a stage when plundering becomes the normal socially supportive thing to do,
and property rights are redefined to achieve some kind of transfer of material
goods (Quarantelli 8 Dynes, 1968).

If we consider the violence in Inanda, we can see a similar pattern

revealed, especially If we see stages one and two as running into each other.

224

The most widespread form of looting seems to have been during stage three,
when it became the normally supportive thing to do. It could also be argued that
the riots were the rather violent beginning to a process of “collective bargaining”
concerning rights and responsibilities of certain communities. The warlords took
advantage of the absence of Indian landlords and traders to initiate a process of
”collective bargaining“ via the KLA with the central state for incorporation into
KwaZulu.

In the early 1980s, Inanda acted as a safety net for those Africans
struggling to maintain a toehold in the vicinity of Durban. Residents were
prepared to take on all comers in their striving to free themselves of any external
authority. The initial targeting of Indian shops must be seen as part of the
broader upsurge that targeted symbols of wealth and privilege. Indian shops
were obviously the softer option. African traders and theirfamilies, if experiences
In other townships were anything to go by, would have mounted determined
resistance. In any case, Indians were the dominant trader class, the more
outstanding symbols of wealth. The looting of Indian houses and shops should
not be ‘seen as straightforward expressions of racial hostility. As Oberschall
(1968), writing with reference to the 1965 Los Angeles riots, reminds us, looting’s

attraction to people lacking the consumer goods others take for granted

needs no complex explanation beyond the simple desire to obtain them
when the opportunity to do so involves a low risk of apprehension by the
police. Such action is facilitated by low commitment to the norms of
private property expressed in the propensity of ”the poor to seek a degree
of elementary social justice at the expense of the rich," the fact that others

were doing the same thing, and the fact that the stores sacked in this case
belonged to ”Whitey.“ (p. 338)

225

The African community was not homogeneous, but itwas united in fighting
off any outside authority that would jeopardize its already precarious existence
close to central Durban. This is seen by lnanda’s determined resistance to
attempts to Inkatha impisto control the area. On Thursday, a heavily armed impi
from the Lindelani squatter camp arrived at the Inanda settlements of Bambayi
and Amaouti, attacking everyone in sight.

They had seriously miscalculated the situation because the crowds set

upon them and sent them off with a few killed and many injured. . . . The

impis returned at 2 am. for a surprise attack, and again, the community
was ready and they repulsed imp/I It returned twice more the next
evening and was again repulsed. In the process everybody turned
against Inkatha, because the attacks were carried out in its name. The
second largest concentration of deaths occurred in this conflict. (Sitas,

1986. p. 111)

In Inanda, the warlords consolidated their position after a prolonged
stmggle. However, as their collusion with Inkatha hastened lnanda’s
incorporation into KwaZulu, the community led by the youth began to confront the
warlords. By early 1989, violent confrontation had become more organized,

and the first warlord areas to fall were used as springboards for attack on

further areas. Inkatha came under siege. Some warlords fled their areas.

Others and their followers were killed. By the end of the year most of

Inanda had been liberated and youth and civic organizations were gaining

support. . . . This situation saw the landlords gain control of their land and

new relationships formed with them. (Makhatini, 1991, p. 4)

The community was able, in most cases, to negotiate mechanisms for the
payment of rent to landlords.

Recently, warlords have begun to reappear in Inanda. In many cases,
landlords have made the short leap to warlordism. In the absence of legal and

administrative measures, it is difficult to sustain a rent-paying scheme that relies

226

on the goodwill of the tenants. This is made all the more difficult when tenants
are poverty stricken. Social relations in shantytowns are alternately
characterized by volatility and stasis as the locus of power and control shifts
around.

lnkatha’s determination to restore 'order” in 1985 reveals the upsurge as
developing into a broader people’s revolt. In the 1940s, the struggles were of a
more limited nature. For one, the number of Africans in the urban areas was
limited. Education levels were extremely low, and resources were limited.
Communication at local and national levels was limited. This meant that
resistance was often isolated and easily put down. By the 1970s, much of this
had changed. South Africa’s transition to monopoly capitalism created the
objective conditions for a broadly based union movement with national linkages.
The expansion of secondary schooling and tertiary education created the
conditions for student organizations. The youth, many of whom had lived all their
lives in the urban areas, began to organize. Localized stmggles were replaced
by struggles that spread countrywide. Resistance was much more intense and
prolonged. A broad stratum of black intellectuals began to play a pronounced
role in the extra-parliamentary movement. A number of white academics lent
their skills and resources to the union movement. The shop stewards of the
1970s emerged as highly experienced working-class leaders with significant
constituencies in the early 1980s. After a few false starts, workers and youth

organizations began to synchronize their struggles by the beginning of the 1980s.

227

When the struggle for Durban’s township began in August 1985, most of
the African townships in the other major urban centers were in turmoil. Many
townships of the Eastern Cape resembled liberated zones, with street
committees performing civic functions. The 1985 Durban upsurge cannot be
seen In Isolation from those national developments. It was part of a broad-
based, people’s revolt by people who had no political rights in the urban areas.
In different regions the struggle took different forms. In most cases those
regarded as "aliens” within the communities were expelled. In the Eastern Cape
these were identified as community councilors and black policemen. In Durban

these aliens were identified as the rich and wealthy.

3.12 Summary

The chapter focused mainly on the character of the riots. In looking at
participation in the riots of 1949, the ”scum of the earth” thesis was not
supported. While the ama/aita gangs participated in the violence, dockworkers,
ricksha pullers, and ngoma dance troupes were participants in the violence. The
riots were found to have both instrumental and consummatory actions. While the
riots were anti-Indian, they were stimulated and guided by conditions related to
the changing context of apartheid. The focus then shifted to the 1985 violence.
There are important points of difference from the 1949 riots. A large part of the
violence was African versus African. There were different battle lines. The
comrades took on the symbols of'power and privilege in the different townships.
The impis fought the comrades. African residents of Inanda united to fight off

Inkatha-aligned impis. Also there was lndo-African violence. While the 1949

 

228
riots can be more easily classified as anti-Indian, the 1985 violence was a much
more complex phenomenon. There were, however, situational conditions within
Inanda that were similar to those giving rise to the anti-Indian rioting in Cato
Manor in 1949. These conditions appear to have produced similar outcomes in
Inanda in 1985.

In Chapter 2 the objective and structural features of the political economy
of the region were examined with a view to identifying those factors that may
have created the underlying predisposing impetus for the violence in 1949 and
1985. In this chapter the argument was carried beyond this through an analysis
of the more subjective grass-roots features and history of the specific locales of
Cato Manor and Inanda. Here the objective was also to identify the factor or
factors that acted as a spark or trigger for each of the riots and to proceed to an
analysis of several key questions that impact upon (and hopefully contribute to)
sociological debates about the origins and development of “ethnically” based
instances of collective violence. These key questions are:

1. Which social groups or classes constituted the rioters?

2. Were the riots specifically anti-Indian, or were aspects of the
violence directed at symbols of the apartheid edifice?

3. Were the riots spontaneous or planned or some complex, phased
combination of both?

4. What were the similarities and differences between the two

instances?

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The analysis of the 1949 riots revealed that while gangs participated in the
violence and probably gave the riot its initial impetus, dockworkers and ricksha
pullers who had a history of militant working-class action were also central to the
riot. The riot itself had both spontaneous and planned aspects and represented
a complexity of anti-Indian and anti-apartheid violence.

The 1985 riots illustrated a complex, phased combination of both
spontaneous and planned aspects. Similarly, the riots had both anti-Indian and
anti-apartheid dimensions. However, unlike the 1949 riots, the 1985 violence
had broader dimensions. The violence engulfed most of Durban’s African
townships. In these townships there was a particular targeting of symbols of
wealth, power, and privilege. The riots also revealed emerging divisions within
the African community. The comrades movement, loosely aligned with the UDF,
fought running battles with impis led by warlords linked to Inkatha. The latter
were widely perceived to be a surrogate of the apartheid state by the comrades
movement. Thus, the violence in Inanda went beyond an anti-lndianism. The
most bloody battles were fought between the African community from the area
and Inkatha-aligned warlords. In 1949, similar divisions did not emerge.
Contrary to the pronouncements of political organizations of all hues at the time,
the 1985 riots were not the work of thugs and hooligans but represented a broad
spectrum of the squatter communities.

The chapter also looked at the role of the state, local state, and
oppositional groups in each period. In the 1940s, the local state exacerbated

tensions between Indian landlords and African tenants in Cato Manor. Initially,

230

the City Council insisted on Indian landlords providing essential services to Cato
Manor. If they failed to comply, the landlords had to evict their tenants. Later in
the 19403, the City Council’s zoning proposals earmarked Cato Manor for
exclusive Indian use. Indian presence came increasingly to be seen as a threat
to African permanence in Cato Manor. Political organizations did nothing to allay
these concerns. Leadership figures in both the African and Indian communities
were prone to a narrow ethnic chauvinism.

In Inanda in the 1980s, the state, local state, and Inkatha for diverse
reasons were keen to see the removal of Indians from the area. Progressive
political organizations like the UDF failed to move beyond the racial boundaries
constructed by the apartheid state and build a multiracial constituency. Indian
political organizations, operating with the state-sponsored tricameral parliament,
and Inkatha espoused a narrow ethnic ideology.

Thus, what the chapter unveils is how the state, local state, and
oppositional political groups in each period ”took advantage" of the local history
and features of each of these areas to further their own objectives and how,
therefore, any convergence between objective/structural factors, on the one
hand, and subjective/structural features, on the other, combined to produce the
conflagration that was Cato Manor in 1949 and Inanda in 1985.

The next chapter provides an analysis of the violence.

CHAPTER 4
ANALYSIS, RECOMMENDATIONS. AND CONCLUSIONS

4.1 Initnduntinn
This final chapter presents a summary of the study and the major findings.
It then focuses on the implications of the erosion of apartheid on lndo-African
relations. Using the study as a basis, policy recommendations are made with the
aim of reducing the potential of ethnic collective violence. Suggestions are then
made for further research on collective violence, and the contribution of the study

is assessed.

4.2 SnmnnnnandAnalvsis

In Chapter 2, we traced the relationship between the Indian and African
communities at a political, economic, and social level in the 1940s. Both groups
interacted at the level of the labor market and trade. Indians were advantaged
In both spheres. At the level of the labor market, Indian workers with their better
levels of education and their legally permanent status in the urban areas moved
much more quickly up the job hierarchy. These advantages in the competition
for jobs were reinforced by a general employer outlook that the 'nimbleness of
mind and finger,“ the "stability,” and "responsibility" of Indians set them apart for
semi-skilled jobs, while the “robust physical strength” and "unreliability" of

Africans made them 'suited” to unskilled labor (Smith, 1950, pp. 453-455). The

231

232

competition for unskilled and semi-skilled jobs often led to antagonism between
Africans and Indians. Thus, Nuttall (1989) has noted that the competition for
lower paid jobs and the perception that Indians had better chances of moving into
higher paid semi-skilled jobs meant that Africans increasingly came to see
Indians as ”collective competitors and targets of frustration, rather than as co-
workers” (p. 7). While there were successful attempts at multiracial worker action
in the early 1940s, by the late 19408 the “broad co-operation and collective
organization of the early 1940’s had disintegrated“ (Hemson, 1977, p. 108).
Despite strenuous attempts by the leadership of the NIC and the national
leadership of the ANC, a similar lack of unity pervaded political relations.

In the 1940s, the African petit-bourgeoisie began to challenge the
dominance of Indian trade in African areas. They began by attempting to obtain
trading and transport licenses. Indian business interests cleverly used legal
mechanisms to ward off African competition.

In the case of trading licenses, the Commission of Enquiry into the 1949
riots found that whenever an African trader applied for a trading license nearby,
the Indian shopkeeper would oppose it—the African being invariably new at the
trade would often be operating from “unhygienic premises,“ a technical legal
objection, and his application would be refused. This was the same tactic used
by white traders against Indian competition from the 1880s onwards (see
Padayachee 8 Morrell, 1991). This led to the emerging African trader class
perceiving their advancement as being blocked by Indian traders. In the words

of the Commission (1949):

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When the Indian storekeeper—usually through council—very naturally,
raisesobjections on this ground [that the shop is unhygienic] to the
acquisition of trading rights by his potential competitor, the Native regards

this as further evidence of the lndian’s callidity and obstructive tactics. (p.

14)

Of course, Indian traders were helped by the fact that they also had
historical advantages over African competitors. Padayachee and Morrell (1991)
point to how, in the period c1875—1914, ”limited access to capital, geographic
restrictions on their mobility, trade and licensing barriers, language, educational
and technical disabilities (most related directly to racial discrimination)“ were
contributory factors to restricting the expansion of an African commercial class.

Some of these restrictions and disabilities either did not apply to Indians

or were less severe, both in terms of the laws themselves and/or in their

application. In other instances such as in education, Indians were
themselves able to mobilize the resources to overcome the discriminatory
allocation of state funds, giving them an important advantage in terms of

(English) language ability and technical proficiency and skills.

(Padayachee 8 Morrell, 1991, p. 102)

In looking at the ”Native” consumer, Rinder (1958-59) notes, “the roles of
middleman, of merchandiser, money-lender, and the rest place the people in the
gap in the position of playing the economic villain vis-a-vis the people they
service“ (p. 258). In the context of increasing economic hardship, the role of
villain becomes more pronounced. In the post-Second World War period, this
was the case. ”Prices were rising and the Africans found that the Indian
storekeepers with whom they dealt were demanding greatly increased prices for
the flour, mealie-meal, sugar, condensed milk and so on, which were so

important in their diet. Therefore, there grew up among the Africans, not

unnaturally, profound irritation against the Indians” (Palmer, 1957, p. 156). The

234
Commission noted that “the Native had difficulty in understanding why the cost
structure would wax after the war has come to an end. To him the explanation
was simple, and he attributed world economic trends to the rapacity of the
Indian.”

In the case of transport licenses, the Motor Carrier Transportation Act
tended to operate in favor of those who were already established in business as
the law laid down that no new license may be granted if transportation facilities
are already in existence in that area. Indian bus owners who dominated
transport to African townships used the Act to prevent Africans gaining access
to licenses. This led to much hostility. To quote from the Commission (1949),

When a Native applicant desires to make an inroad into an area which is

already served by an Indian service . . . the Indian protects the rights

vested in him by the Statute by protesting to the Board concerned against
the issue of a certificate to the Native applicant. The Native does not
understand the policy of the law. All that he understands is that he is
obstructed by the Indian, and his blood pressure goes up. His impression
is that the Board—or the Government-gives the Indian preferential

treatment, and that the Indian secures this by bribery and corruption. (p.

17)

At the level of land and housing, there was a close interaction between
Indians and Africans. However, the relationship was marked by tensions.
Africans who wanted to settle with their families or who sought to escape the
strictures of hostel life were forced to reside outside the old municipal
boundaries. In the shacklands that developed beyond the boundaries, Africans
rented sites from Indian landlords in the main. Given the fact that there was no

administrative or legal mechanism for the extraction of rent, the relationship

between tenant and landlord was fraught with tension. Africans also had to

235

compete with potential Indian tenants for the best sites. Indians were often
advantaged in this competition because of familial ties. African landlords also
emerged. Often not having dejure rights, they claimed de facto control. They
maintained this control through vigilante forces who acted as barriers to these
ambitions. The struggle for land and housing took place in a context where
centrally established and socially accepted juridical demonstration of rights,
codified in administrative rules and regulations and which could be legally
challenged and enforced through the repressive apparatus of the state, were
absent. The ability to control an area also implied an ability for access to force.
Violence was inscribed in the very social relations of the shacklands.

The competitive relations between Indians and Africans in all these
contexts took place within a particular economic and political context. It took
place in a period when the policy of segregation which underpinned state policy
was crumbling. The system which was designed to produce a cheap migrant
labor force generated rural impoverishment. This undermined the very logic of
segregation, which was predicated on the migrant worker’s family supporting
itself in the rural areas. Rural impoverishment was accompanied by the
intensification of urban poverty. With thousands of rural Africans streaming into
the urban areas, the ruling United Party could not settle on an urban strategy to
meet the new conditions nor develop an alternative accumulation strategy. The
United Party was eclipsed by the National Party in the 1948 elections, so
inaugurating the policy of apartheid. The riots took place at a time when the

Durban City Council had decided on a ”hands-off“ approach to the shacklands.

236
With the National Party having just assumed power, it had not developed a
response to the issue of squatter settlements. In Cato Manor there was an
absence of any external regulation in the form of the local and national state. As
if perceiving a weakness at the level of the ruling class, the ANC began to adopt
a more radical posture. This could also have been fueled by the period of
economic contraction following the boom period of the war years.

From analyzing these predisposing conditions to the 1949 riots, the
analysis moved to understanding the social relations prevailing in Cato Manor,
the center of the violence. It was held that the actual form violence takes in any
particular case is largely influenced by issues specific to the locale in which the
violence occurs. Gaskell and Bennewick (1987), among others, argue that when
one looks for the flashpoints of violence, ”locale” is a critical element in the
search for an explanation (p. 17).12 They argue that the local context in which
the events occur needs to be examined along with the national context—political
change, economic recession, and so on-and the material deprivation
experienced by subjugated communities. This is elaborated by Parry, Moyser,
and Wagstaff (1987) in the following manner:

Locality may be a crucially important factor in crowd mobilization and in

understanding the aftermath of disturbances. National trends in

unemployment and economic recession are refracted through the prism
of locality into the conditions in which the individual functions. However

mobile our society, the local spatial dimension is a necessary and major
part of our experience.

 

12ft is important to note that ”locality" is not a sociological variableurather, a
site in which particular and perhaps but not necessarily unique combinations of
variables influence social outcomes.

237

Unable to settle in the city center, many Africans resorted to finding an
abode in the shacklands surrounding the outer rim of the city, a phenomenon
Maylam (1983) has referred to as Durban’s “black belt.“ The most popular of
these settlements was Cato Manor. In the 19403, thousands of rural migrants
took their places in Mkhumbane.

In the main, sites were rented from Indian landlords. These landlords
often relied on African indunas to collect rent and maintain control. There was
also a group of African landlords who, while often not having dejure ownership
of the land, developed a de facto ownership. Sometimes this was done through
striking a bargain with an Indian owner. Mostly it was achieved through beating
off the attentions of other aspirant landlords. These “mayors” of Mkhumbane
maintained their power through vigilante forces.

For many of the residents, Cato Manor represented a last toehold in the
urban environment. Loss of this abode would inevitably mean a drift back to the
impoverished reserves. For many it would be the ”walk of death.” With
influential Zionist preachers touting Mkhumbane as the "promised land,“
Mkhumbane was not just some transient camp, it was the final resting place.

Africans in Cato Manor tried to engender some economic muscle through
the development of a cooperative movement. From the outset, the cooperative
movement was defined as distinctly African and sometimes more narrowly as a
Zulu phenomenon. However, the cooperative movement could not break the
stranglehold of the Indian trader. The challenge of the African trader was also

warded off.

238

Indian presence came to be seen as the immediate threat to the future of
African residents in Cato Manor. Although often acting at the behest of the local
state, it was the Indian landlord who was the instrument of evictions. The 1946
Act earmarked Cato Manor for Indians. Indian landlords acted as a barrier to the
'mayors” of Mkhumbane, extending their influence. Indian traders blocked the
aspirations of the cooperative movement and the African petit-bourgeoisie,
hoping to break into a lucrative market. With the City Council adopting a ”hands-
off" approach to Cato Manor, Indians came to be seen as acting as the local
state, which privileged themselves.

The diverse African constituents who were Mkhumbane were united under
the rubric of the “New Africa." Central to the ideology was an appeal to African
ethnic unity. This appeal had a number of impulses. For the African petit-
bourgeoisie, it translated into an appeal for Africans only to trade in African
areas. Young (1986) also tells us that the conditions associated with modernity
give rise to psychological settings conducive to affirmation of cultural identity.
“The social insecurities of new urban environments, the sense of aloneness
engendered by the city and workplace, create a powerful craving for reinforced
primary ties that can give security, meaning, and mooring to the vast and
marginalized populations of the primate agglomerations” (p. 126). African
women who were pushed out of the city center, women who suddenly arrived in
the city in search of the husband with whom contact was long lost, the migrant
“forced“ off the land, and many others in Mkhumbane would have found

resonance with lsaacs’s argument (cited in Young, 1986) that insecure people

239
who are torn loose from all moorings cling hard to wherever they can find a
”place where they belong, and they are finding this place more and more . . . in
[cultural] affinities with their ineffable significance and their peculiarly coercive
powers" (p. 126).

Underpinning the ideology of "New Africa“ was the notion of vengeance
imported from Natal’s rural locations and based on the need to defend or show
the capacity to defend one’s territory. Ethnicity is a resource that is available for
adoption and reconstruction in the context of competition and conflict over scarce
resources. Instead of historical or traditional lines of social division simply being
replaced by more 'modern” ones, they are reconstituted, blending together, in
new and unanticipated ways, both traditional and "modern" lines of social
differentiation.

In turning to the riots themselves, the initial violence was a spontaneous
reaction to the beating of George Madondo. The spontaneous response was
facilitated by a few factors. The participants shared a minimal solidarity in being
able to recognize potential allies and antagonists in terms of their race. There
were groupings of ama/aitas in the vicinity who were well versed in the art of
street fighting. Rule (1988) argues that news of atrocities to a particular group
may move members of the group to violent actions that would never otherwise
have occurred (p. 268). Such developments, however, are not likely without
there being enduring tensions or clashes of interest that establish targets of such
action. Evidence to the Riot Commission indicates that the Africans tended to

perceive Indians as alien exploiters.

240

The Friday lunchtime excursion into the Indian quarter was organized.
This attack was marked by the fact that the rioters observed certain bounds,
directed their aggression at specific targets, and selected appropriate means for
the end they Intended to obtain. The Friday afternoon march looked beyond the
Indian quarter and was perceived by the police as a broader challenge to the
white powerholders.

Bnitally put down in the city center, the riot moved into Cato Manor.
Commuters bringing news of the events in the city center provided the violence.
lmpis acting at the behest of the "mayors" of Mkhumbane drove Indians out of
Cato Manor and staked out the vacated areas on behalf of their bosses. The
only government building, the post office, was destroyed. If there had been more
buildings, they would probably have met with the same fate. The violence went
beyond looting, beating, and breaking to include rape and arson. Beyond the
impisthe general African population had a rationale forthe expulsion of Indians--
their presence, more than the machinations of the local and national state,
constituted a threat to their future existence in Cato Manor, their last hope in a
hostile city.

Most analysts of the 1949 riots fall into the trap that many students of
collective behavior fall into—that of seeing the crowd as homogeneous and
displaying unanimity of behavior. McPhaiI (1991) argues that while people do
behave collectively, “what they do together varies greatly in complexity, in

duration, and in the proportion of the gathering that actually participates“ (p. 185).

241
This allows us, according to McPhail, to break the study of crowds into simpler
components, making the task more manageable and therefore simpler.

This approach has allowed us to view the 1949 riots as both spontaneous
and planned. While the riots were purposeful and targeted and selected
appropriate means for the ends, they also had consummatory aspects.

This approach to collective behavior allows us also to understand whether
the riots were anti-Indian or anti-apartheid. The riots went through different
phases and had different objectives. There was the spontaneous reaction to the
beating of George Madondo. The Friday lunchtime attack was limited to looting
and the robbing of individual Indians. There was a perception that the police
would not protect Indian shops, as long as the white shops were left alone. The
Friday afternoon march had a broader scope. It widened across the north and
south of the city. A white motorist was stoned. This was a challenge to the
broader power relations of the city. Recognizing this, the ”city fathers”
responded with brute force.

Cato Manor became the center of the violence. Here the riots were a
complexity of anti-Indian and anti-apartheid violence. The particular brand of
ethnic unity under the rubric of “New Africa" fueled an anti-Indianism. It also had
a material basis. The riots were also directed at the particular form urban
apartheid had taken. Africans were temporary sojoumers. and their position in
Cato Manor was always underthreat. However, the power struggle between the
National and United parties and the inability of the City Council to develop a

unified response to the squatter issues (this was related to their lack of capacity

242

to implement a policy in the absence of support from the national state and the
lobby from local capitalists who saw the squatter camps as a reservoir of cheap
labor) resulted in a ”hands-off" approach to Cato Manor. Indian landlords were
asked to upgrade Cato Manor. Indian landlords were also asked to evict African
tenants. Indians were to be given Cato Manor. It was Indian presence that was
the immediate threat to Africans. Expelling Indians would consolidate African
permanence. Permanence was the crucial issue. Immediately after the riots,
armed impis guarded Cato Manor against ”outsiders.“ A message was sent to
the City Council—“Leave us alone.”

The analysis of the 1949 riots has raised serious doubts about the notion
that the rioters represented the “scum of the earth.“ While the ama/aira gangs
were certainly central to the violence, the rioters also consisted of dockworkers
and ricksha pullers, who had a long tradition of militancy. The participants in
Cato Manor were typical residents of the neighborhood.

Between the 1950s and 19803, significant changes were wrought on the
political economy of South Africa. National Party rule was met with sustained
resistance by the dominated classes led by the ANC. However, the state was
able to deal a crushing blow to extra-parliamentary organizations in the early
19608. The relative stability that followed was used to elaborate the policy of
apartheid. The Group Areas Act was wielded to ensure strict residential
separation, while the homelands were seen as meeting the aspirations of

Africans. This structuring of society was facilitated by a ten-year economic

243
boom. It is no wonder that this period has been dubbed the "golden years of
apartheid.”

By the mid-1970s, the economy was lurching into crisis. This crisis was
accompanied by a resurgence of political activity in the African community. The
African working class, its numbers significantly enlarged in response to the
economic expansion of the 1960s, began to demand higher wages and better
working conditions. The youth, a generation born and raised in the urban
ghettoes, scorned the homelands as vehicles fortheir political aspirations. Stung
by the intensity of the 1976 rebellion, popularly known as the ”Soweto riots,” the
state attempted to foster a privileged stratum of Africans in the urban areas. At
the same time, the state moved to ”upgrade” channels of communication with the
Indian and colored communities, sectors of which were beginning to ally
themselves with anti-state extra-parliamentary organizations. However, as the
economic downturn continued into the 1980s and resistance widened, the state
turned to repression.

During this period the racial ordering of Durban did not alter significantly.
Indians continued to predominate at the semi-skilled levels of the occupational
hierarchy. Africans filled the unskilled jobs and suffered greatly as the economy
contracted. At the level of trade, Indians held 40.9% of trading licenses in
Durban in 1975 as compared to the 2.66% held by Africans. Indians began more
distinctly to resemble a middleman minority. By contrast, Durban’s African
community suffered under the impact of the economic downswing. Growing

unemployment was accompanied by widespread poverty. At the level of

 

244
organization, Indian workers were not attracted to the independent trade union
movement, opting instead for the conservative federation, TUCSA.

When black political organizations began to re-emerge in the 1970s, it did
not herald a return to the cooperation reminiscent of the Congress alliance. The
NIC recovered from the slumber of the 1960s to reflect increasingly the politics
of the NIC of the early 19403. The resurrected Inkatha echoed the politics of the
Zulu society of the 1940s. The Society was founded in 1937. Like the early
Inkatha, it fought for state recognition for the scion of the Zulu royal house as
paramount and the preservation of Zulu tradition and custom (Marks, 1989, p.
217). By 1945, A. H. Ngidi, Chairman of the Zulu Society (an offshoot of the
Natal Bantu Traders’ Organization), was talking about vast commercial ventures
and the rehabilitation of the reserves 'agriculturally, industrially, commercially,
educationally and socially." He argued that the Zulu should be persuaded to sell
their cattle in order to accumulate capital to start stores "and displace Indians and
Europeans as exploiters of the people" (quoted in Marks, 1989, p. 223). As
Marks noted, Ngidi’s politics did not envision any disengagement from the state.
Ngidi had major ideas forthe ”restoration" of the reserves based on the reduction
of African livestock (which would be preceded by the regulation and definition of
all occupied land, and on the closer settlement).

Ngidi thought all reserves in Natal and Zululand should include special
zones for townships (Marks, 1989, p.223). Similarly, Buthelezi’s Inkatha was
geared towards accumulating as many townships and as much land as possible

to bolster the KwaZulu bantustan. Its politics were that of collaboration with the

245

state and a shying away from mass campaigns and struggles. Zulu pride and the
harking back to traditionalism became its rallying cry. The emergence of the
UDF in 1983, despite its platform of nonracialism, failed to make any impact on
breaching ethnic divides. In fact, it tended to exacerbate them. The NIC top
brass dominated the UDF leadership in the region. Buthelezi was cleverly able
to use this. When the UDF criticized Inkatha, Buthelezi labeled it as symptomatic
of Indian hostility towards the Zulu.

This lack of interdependence at a political level was matched by cultural
divides. Kirk (1983) argues that factors of endogamy, family kinship, language,
and religion, which were most effective in maintaining Indian cultural
distinctiveness, were viewed by Africans as being anti-African (p. 16).

As already alluded to, the boom of the 1960s was replaced by an acute
economic recession in the mid-1970s and 1980s. This was accompanied by a
heightening of mass struggle which threatened the urban apartheid edifice.

During the 1960s, urban apartheid reached the peak of its functionality.
However, by the second half of the 1970s, cracks began to appear. With the
apartheid state unable to shore up the bantustan economies, the drift to ”white”
South Africa gathered pace. Influx control was unable to stem the tide.
However, both the central and local state refused to provide any social services
for the Afrimns it regarded as outsiders.

In Durban, the ”outsiders“ were particularly badly off. The state’s policy
was to freeze any development in townships in 'white" South Africa. The priority

was to upgrade townships under KwaZulu control. Many Africans were to find

246
a 'home” in shack settlements, the largest and fastest growing of which was at
Inanda. In the early 19803, no single authority claimed control over Inanda.

In the 1940s, the growth of shack settlements had signaled the state’s loss
of control of the black housing situation. From the 1950s, the state began to
clear these uncontrolled residential zones by moving their occupants into newly
built townships. In the 1980s, there was a return again to the situation of the
19403, although on a much larger scale.

The breakdown in urban apartheid was accompanied by a growing
assertiveness of the dominated classes. By the late 1970s, worker, student, and
civic organizations were challenging the authority of the state. By the mid-19805,
as Administration Board personnel lost control, the military began to make their
appearance in many townships.

After setting the broader structural context, the analysis moved to an
understanding of the economic and social relations prevailing in Inanda. In the
quest for land, Indians were privileged vis-a-vis Africans. They could own land
in Durban, although this privilege had been severely restricted since 1943 and
more comprehensively since 1946. African land ownership was, except for a few
exempted areas, restricted to the Reserves in terms of the 1913 Land Act.

As noted in Cato Manor, this restriction produced particular tensions.
lnanda’s expansion occurred in a period of rapid economic growth between 1963
and 1973. This expansion had a profound influence on lnanda’s social structure.
For the landowners, the waves of shack dwellers brought new sources of

income—as tenants. For shopowners, many of whom were also landlords,

247
tenants were also consumers. Both African and Indian landlords and traders
competed for this lucrative market. However, from the outset, Indian attempts
to acquire land in Inanda were seen to have an unfair advantage. Thus, as early
as 1914, an African landowner complained that because Indians did not fall
under the ambit of the 1913 Land Act, they were placed in a more advantageous
position in acquiring land in Inanda (Hughes, 1987, p. 338). The provisions of
the 1950 Group Areas Act were also seen to hurt the African landowner at the
expense of the Indian. Hughes points to one African landowner in Inanda, for
example, who had land expropriated on more than one occasion for the
demarcation of Indian Group Areas (p. 340). Similarly, in Inanda through the
1970s and 1980s, the manner in which licenses were issued allowed Indian
traders to stave off competition from aspirant African traders.

In Released Area 33, licenses were issued under the Licenses and
Business Hours Ordinance of 1973. The licensing officer was based at Verulam,
with the chief magistrate being the licensing officer. In certain cases, licensees
have to gain authority also from provincial authorities and, since 1973, from the
Department of Planning Act (No. 88 of 1967). In addition, African licensees had
to gain approval from the Department of Co-operation and Development. The
Urban Foundation in a study of Inanda found that this tortuous route and the
extra step required of potential African licensees advantaged Indian traders since
they had greater resources to stay the course (Urban Foundation Natal Region,

Basic Planning Information on Inanda, 1980, pp. 49-50).

248

A strong anti-lndianism emerged from within the ranks of the African
“traditional“ petit-bourgeoisie in the 19608 and 19708. Like their counterparts in
the 19408, this petit-bourgeoisie responded to oppressive laws, restrictions, and
competition by trying to use ethnic markers to monopolize an ethnic market.

Using the logic of the state’s separate development policy, the African
petit-bourgeoisie claimed Inanda as their own. The affiliation of the traders’
association, Inyanda. with Inkatha moved the traders from an anti-Indianism into
the realm of Zulu nationalism, which went beyond a simple class protectionism.
African landlords were also keen to see the last of the Indian landlords as this
would create the opportunities for the expansion of their own interests.

Indian landlords were placed in a difficult situation by the state. They were
constantly being pressurized to evict tenants or provide essential services.
Uncertain about their future in Inanda, some landlords opted for eviction. The
relationship between Indian landlords and African tenants was marked by
tension. Powerful interests were lined up against Indian presence for diverse
reasons. The position of African landlords, traders, and tenants has been
explicated. For the state and Inkatha, the removal of Indians would allow for the
incorporation of Inanda into KwaZulu.

All this must be seen in the context of the poverty and degradation that
was Inanda (40% to 50% of the economically active population was
unemployed). A water crisis in the early 19808 had led to a typhoid epidemic.
Removals by the Department of CAD to site and service schemes had created

tensions within Inanda. Asthe broader economic crisis started to have an impact

 

 

249
on the African tenants of Inanda, Indian landlords turned increasingly to coercion
to extract rent.

The spark for the violence came from outside Inanda. On 1 August 1985,
UDF leader Victoria Mxenge was murdered in Umlazi. Protesting the murder, a
school strike spread out across Durban’s African townships. School students,
together with the fledgling comrades movement, led the protests. The focus of
attacks was the township “rich,“ particularly those allied to the KwaZulu
government and symbols of the latter (there was an overwhelming perception
that Inkatha was behind Mxenge’s murder). On Wednesday, 6 August, the
protests reached Inanda. Two Indian-owned shops and houses were looted and
burnt. These events led to a mass exodus of Indians. Indian shops and houses
were looted and burnt.

By this time, Inkatha impis led by warlords began to take on the youth.
They were able to assume control of KwaMashu and Umlazi. In Inanda the
African community was broadly united in fending off Inkatha attacks. The most
intense and bloody violence took place in the three days that Inkatha tried to
enter Inanda.

In trying to discern whether the violence was spontaneous or organized,
it is important to break down the violence into different phases. The initial
violence was a spontaneous reaction to Inkatha, who were perceived to be
implicated in the killing. However, within this spontaneity, there would, in all
probability, have been some coordination through the emerging youth structures

in the different townships.

250

The Inkatha response was organized. The townships were to be wrested
back by Inkatha from the militant youth. Unlike the “social change“ that facilitated
the looting of the abandoned Indian shops and homes, the Inanda communities’
repulsing of the warlords had strong elements of planning and coordination.

Can the 1985 violence in Inanda be seen as anti-Indian? It had its anti-
lndian dimensions. Indian shops and houses were targeted. No attempt was
made to reinstate Indian landowners. Warlords justified their occupation of
Indian-owned land on the basis that Indians were aliens. This aspect of the
violence is crucial and must be understood. However, simply to see the violence
as anti-Indian is not to see the full story. The youth challenged the authority of
Inkatha In all the African townships, an organization perceived by them to be a
surrogate for the South African state. This uprising gelled with resistance
struggles in the townships of the Transvaal and Eastern Cape. In Inanda the
violence went beyond the looting and burning of Indian shops and houses. The
community rose up to defend Inanda against the incursions of Inkatha-aligned
warlords. The 1985 riots were no more exclusively anti-Indian than the 1992 Los
Angeles riots were anti-Korean.

In looking at the composition of the rioters, we were able to discern that
the youth came from different backgrounds and that the violence was directed
at particular targets. Similarly, the impiswere notjust “thugs and hooligans“ but
consisted of a broad spectrum of the squatter communities and were acting at

the behest of warlords. Violence also occurred in a context where Africans and

251
Indians were disenfranchised, and there existed no legitimate channels for the
raising of problems.

Lieberson and Silvennan (1965), in their study of the 76 riots in the United
States between 1913 and 1963, found that the more direct the relation between
voter and government, the less likely are riots to occur. They argue that a more
responsive government makes riots less likely because it provides regularly
institutional channels for expressing grievances (p. 896).

In South Africa, parliament was an overwhelmingly white institution
(coloreds had limited access through white representatives until 1956). As
outlined earlier, urban “native“ policy was predicated on Africans having no
political rights in the urban areas, and they could never expect to acquire them.
From the 19208 until the 19708, by which time the homelands and national states
had been created, the Stallard doctrine was followed sufficiently closely to
eviscerate the administration of urban African communities of civic content, and
to make even the simplest communication between administration and subject,
orthe least problematic negotiation over the provision of services, extraordinarily
complex and ridden with overt conflict (Stadler, 1987, p. 103).

If in the formal townships social services and institutional channels for the
resolving of grievances were largely nonexistent, in the shack settlements the
situation was much worse. It is significant that the events of 1949 and 1985
unfolded in the city’s largest shack settlements of the time.

Durban’s main shack settlement in the 19408, Cato Manor, enabled

subordinate groups, mainly African, to settle in an area that was within easy

252

commuting distance of the city. Both the local and central state abrogated any
responsibility for the provision of social services. As long as developments in
Cato Manor did not challenge the white power structure, the city fathers were
content with the “hands-off“ approach. After all, Cato Manor provided a labor
supply without the municipality needing to outlay much for the workforce’s
residential upkeep. It was in this context that lntemal, unofficial authority
structures emerged in the settlements. Landlords had to rely on the threat of
brute force to ensure the timely payment of rent. Areas became divided into
feifdoms patrolled by armed guards protecting access to resources like water,
maintaining peace, and constantly on the lookout to extend their sphere of
influence. Landlords began operating as administrative authorities by letting
sites, collecting rents, and taking on responsibility for the maintenance of order.
Similarly, in Inanda, the white city council refused to take responsibility for the
provision of social services and mechanisms for the administration of the area.
Indian landlords wielded tremendous power through the use of African indunas.
The induna did not have recourse to legal mechanisms if rents were not paid and
relied on access to the instruments of violence.

The lack of institutional forums for the airing of grievances and settling of
disputes resulted, in many African communities, in "collective bargaining by riot.“
This was a phrase coined to describe English working-class action during the late
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is instructive to note in'this context that

the relationships of police and other agencies of law enforcement toward urban

253
Africans were shaped largely by the assumption that Africans were rightless
subjects. As Stadler (1987) has noted,
any serious modification of a police function that was primarily repressive
in character was largely precluded by the logic of Stallardism and
Verwoerdism. The police were mainly concerned with enforcing influx
regulations, controlling the liquor trade, and with political repression. . . .
Scarcely any element of the black population was secure from the
possibility of criminalisation. . . . The use of anti-vagrancy laws and influx
control to control political activities like boycotts and stay-aways, which
African communities regarded as legitimate, has meant that relations with
the police were strained at best, and, at worst, a state of war. (p. 107)
This thesis has looked at the conditions under which violence breaks out
between a middleman minority and an indigenous majority where both do not
have access to state power. First, for ethnic competition to turn to ethnic conflict,
two necessary conditions were specified:
1. Ethnic competition is perceived as unfair.
2. Competitors’ relations must be as uncomplementary as possible.
The 1949 riots took place in a particular context. There was an economic
contraction following the boom period during the war years. It was also a time
of political crisis. The policy of segregation was in tatters, and the ruling United
Party had just been replaced by the National Party. The intense struggle for
power at the level of the ruling class was met with increased militancy from the
ranks of the dominated classes. The 1985 Inanda riots also took place in a
context where the ruling class faced a political and economic crisis. The boom

years of the 19608 and early 19708 were replaced by an economic downturn.

At the same time, the whole edifice of urban apartheid was beginning to crumble.

254
This took place in a prolonged period of heightened militancy and substantial
organization within the ranks of the dominated classes.

What was also significant was that neither the African nor the Indian
communities had any legitimate institutional channels through which to raise
grievances. This was particularly so in the shantytowns of Inanda and Cato
Manor. Here the local and national state largely abrogated its administrative and
control functions.

The 1949 and 1985 riots occurred in conditions under which ethnic conflict
is most likely to turn violent:

1. Society was going through a phase of economic contraction. This
phase had particular characteristics that lend themselves to violent conflict
between the host society and middleman minorities. Growing impoverishment
of particular classes exacerbates class conflict. New classes emerge that
compete with the middleman minorities. Such competing classes possess both
business and managerial skills and some capital. During the period of economic
contraction, the ruling bloc and the new classes find the middleman minority to
be a convenient scapegoat for the increasing impoverishment. This
scapegoating l8 facilitated by the wealth the middleman minority possesses
relative to the majority it does business with.

2. The state’s legitimacy was in question.

3. Sections of society were excluded from political power or were

alienated.

255

Why would an indigenous majority strike out at a middleman minority
rather than at a white ruling class which, after all, sets the “rules of the game“?

This has much to do with the structural location of the middleman minority.
They have an immediate relation to the indigenous population as buyer and
seller, renter and landlord, client and professional. In the struggle for the scarce
resources of land and housing, jobs, and the opportunities for capital
accumulation, it is the middleman minority that the indigenous majority come up
against. The former are visible, accessible, and vulnerable because of the
immediacy of their spatial location and the lack of a security force to protect their
interests. Whites, on the other hand, are one step removed. They live and trade
apart from the indigenous population and are protected by a repressive
apparatus. This line of argument ties in with the deprivation and resource-
mobilization theories. Groups must be disadvantaged enough to be dissatisfied
(the deprivation theorists’ argument) but also resource-rich enough to be able to
challenge dominant groups (the resource-mobilization argument) (Bélanger 8
Pinard, 1991, p. 449).

However, this does not mean that the white power remains unchallenged
where a middleman minority prevails. Rule (1988) points to how militant success
in one setting “may succeed in getting people to think what was previously
unthinkable about possibilities for social change.“ In this context, we saw how
the riots of both 1949 and especially 1985 broadened into a challenge to the

white power structure.

256

In tracing the relationship between Indians and Africans, we argued that
it lacked interdependence, and the competition for resources was perceived by
Africans to be weighted in favor of Indians. However, these factors do not
explain why antagonism was not directed at whites who set the rules of the
game. In this context, the competition theorists have argued that as ethnic
disparities increase, the likelihood of competition and conflict decreases because
of shortages in the disadvantaged group of resources, especially that of
leadership, and ofmotivational factors like incentives and expectation of success.
Bélanger and Pinard (1991) argue, however, that moderate structural
disadvantage, which is more common in ethnic relations than in class relations,
does not entail serious shortages of these elements and thus does not prevent
competition and conflict (p. 449). This ties in with the deprivation and resource-
mobilization theories. Bélanger and Pinard point out that their argument implies
a curvilinear relationship between ethnic inequality and nonroutine collective
action: groups must be disadvantaged enough to be dissatisfied (the deprivation
theorists’ argument), but also resource-rich enough to be able to challenge
dominant groups (the resource-mobilization argument). Middleman minorities
are visible, vulnerable, and accessible. They have an immediate relation with the
indigenous population as buyer and seller, renter and landlord, client and
professional. Whites, on the other hand, are one step removed. They live and
trade apart from the indigenous population and are protected by a repressive

apparatus.

257

To summarize, this dissertation aimed to provide an understanding and
interpretation of the conditions that underpinned lndo-African antagonism in
Durban and to explain why this antagonism translated into violence In particular
periods. Two violent episodes were focused on-the 1949 and 1985 riots.

In Chapter 1, a broad-ranging review of literature on collective violence
was undertaken. Following Rule, it was argued that any specific act of violence
can possibly be explained by several theories; that is, the theories are not
necessarily mutually exclusive. Also, it was emphasized that a riot is a complex
social phenomenon in which there may often be violent acts of several different
types. The importance of considering multiple causes for the same events of
collective violence prefigured a theme adopted in the rest of the study.

Another major focus of the chapter was the continuing salience of ethnic
competition and the conditions under which such competition can lead to ethnic
conflict. Following Bélanger and Pinard, two conditions were specified:
competition must be perceived as unfair, and competitive relations must be
relatively free from interdependence. In this context, Bonacich’s (1973) theory
of middleman minorities was reviewed given the location of Indian South Africans
in the country’s political economy, wedged between the African majority and
white minority who hold state power. However, Bonacich’s theory was
elaborated to account for middleman minorities that move beyond the roles of
trader and landlord and occupy a “middle“ position in industries owned by whites.

Chapter 2 set out the predisposing conditions to the 1949 and 1985 riots.

Focusing initially on the 19408, the discussion revolved around the emergence

258

and the gradual consolidation of a racial hierarchy and of racial competition. The
changes in Durban’s political economy during the 19408 heightened social
conflict in a number of spheres. Evidence of accumulating lndo-African tensions
in the decade were gathered by examining developments in the economy at
large, with a particular focus on the labor market, housing, trade, and transport.

This discussion was followed by an assessment of particular factors that
had an impact on developing a racial hierarchy and competition. These factors
were: the nature and character of the political economy itself, the role of the
state’s segregation policy, the role of the local state’s interventions, and the part
played by the fragmentary nature of politics in Durban. Attempts to counter this
in the form of nonracial trade unions and multiparty alliances were also looked
at. A similar set of organizing categories was used for the 19808. The labor
market, trade, and so on, were examined, and then for each of these, the role of
the apartheid state, local state, and so on, were looked at.

The discussion of both periods was situated in a broader national context.
The 1949 riots took place in the aftermath of the collapse of the policy of
segregation and the newly elected National Party’s failure to develop a response
to deal with the thousands of Africans streaming into the major urban centers.
This was also a period of economic contraction following the boom period of the
war years. The 1985 violence occurred in the context of the collapse of urban
apartheid and an acute economic recession. This was accompanied by the

growing militancy and national character of black political and civic organizations.

259

Chapter 3 laid out the more subjective issues that precipitated the violence
in their specific locale and analyzed the character of the riots. Beginning with the
19408, the chapter described the sources of Indo-African antagonism in Cato
Manor. There was a competitive relationship between emergent African traders!
landlords and their Indian counterparts who were more established. Indian
traders with their superior access to credit and other historical advantages were
able to ward off African competition. This only served to exacerbate antagonism.
The relationship between Indian landlords and tenants was often volatile given
that there was no administrative or legal mechanism for the extraction of rent.

Africans across the class spectrum had one common objective-making
Cato Manor their permanent home. Indians came to be seen as a constant
threat to this aspiration because legal ownership of the land was held by Indians.
This insecurity was fueled by the white local authority, which indicated the desire
to move Africans out of the area and retain Cato Manor for exclusive Indian use.
Running through the lives of Africans in Cato Manor was the ideology of “New
Africa.“ Together with the appeal to African ethnic unity, the ideology legitimized
vengeance. This notion, with its roots in Natal’s rural locations, was predicated
on the need to defend (or indicate the ability to defend) one’s territory.

The riot itself had both spontaneous and planned aspects. For example,
while the “spark“ forthe riot was a spontaneous reaction to the beating of George
Madondo, the lunchtime attack on the Indian quarter the next day was organized.
Similarly, while the riots were purposeful and targeted and selected appropriate

means for the ends, they also had consummatory aspects. The riots were also

260

a complexity of anti-Indian and anti-apartheid violence. In Cato Manor, the
violence was directed at Indians. However, the riots also challenged the
particular form urban apartheid had taken. In order to consolidate their
precarious position In Cato Manor, the rioters were prepared to take on the white
local authority. Similarly, earlier in the city center the riot displayed distinct signs
of expanding into a general challenge to the broader power relations of the city.
The composition of the rioters challenges the notion of existing studies that they
represented the “scum of the earth.“ While the ama/aita gangs were certainly
central to the violence, the rioters also consisted of dockworkers and ricksha
pullers, who had a long tradition of militancy. The participants in Cato Manor
were typical residents of the neighborhood.

Moving to Inanda during the early 19808, significant divisions had
emerged between Indian landlords/traders and their African counterparts. Using
the Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act of 1959 as a lever, the African petit-
bourgeoisie sought to make Inanda their exclusive preserve. Because the Indian
petit-bourgeoisie were their immediate competitors, this struggle often translated
into an anti-Indianism. Like Cato Manor of the 19408, the absence of
administrative or legal mechanisms for the extraction of rent often produced a
particularly volatile relationship between landlord and tenant. This was
exacerbated by the policies of the local and national state. The local state
argued that Inanda was an illegal settlement and therefore it was not prepared
to allocate resources to the area. The central state presented Indian landlords

with a choice: evict the tenants or provide essential services. Uncertain about

261

their future In Inanda, some landlords opted for eviction, adding to the already
volatile relationship with African tenants. The fact that the state did not make
similar demands on African landlords meant that eviction was seen in racial
terms. For the state, the removal of Indians would allow incorporation of Inanda
into KwaZulu, facilitating the objective of balkanizing South Africa into different
homelands. Inkatha had similar objectives since this would have led to the
extension of their influence in the region. What was clear by the 19808 is that
significant players both within and outside Inanda were lined up against Indian
presence In the area, albeit for diverse reasons.

In turning to the character of the riots themselves, it was argued that the
only way of understanding the violence was to break it down into different
phases. This allowed for the perception that the riots had both spontaneous and
planned aspects. Similarly, while the riots had their anti-Indian dimensions, they
certainly went beyond this. For example, in Inanda the violence moved beyond
the looting and burning of Indian shops and houses to an uprising against
attempts by Inkatha-aligned warlords to move into the area. Contrary to
statements by some social scientists and political organizations, the rioters did
not simply consist of young, hungry men with red eyes and hardened features,
but rather represented a broad spectrum of the squatter communities.

Rule (1988) calls for theories of civil violence that specify particular
connections that should apply in particular settings. This dissertation is, in a
sense, a response to this challenge. It attempted to set out the conditions under

which violence breaks out between a middleman minority and an indigenous

262
majority where both do not have access to state power. The findings, however,
move beyond these narrow confines and lend themselves to a more general
applicability.

The dissertation focused on the South African situation where a white
minority holds state and economic power. The findings have applicability in post-
colonial situations where the indigenous majority gain state power but economic
power resides in the hands of transnationals and advanced industrialized
countries and small local trade continues to be dominated by the old middleman
minority. Often in these circumstances the new holders of state power have
acted against the monopoly of the middleman minority who are more visible,
vulnerable, and accessible than the transnationals and advanced industrialized
countries. Malaysia and Uganda are two well-known examples. A case that is
unfolding presently is that of Kenya. Journalist Joe Khamisi wrote recently that
“As political tensions rise in advance of Kenya’s general election, the vulnerable
Asian community is in a dilemma. Its members must quickly decide whether to
stay on and risk becoming victims of post election strife or seek temporary refuge
abroad“ (Wm. 23 November 1992). The increasing vulnerability of Asians
in Kenya comes in the context of the country’s first multiparty election in more
than two decades.

Over the last century, Kenyan Asians have gained substantial holdings in
the retail, manufacturing, and service industries. More recently, Asians have
benefited from close association With the regime of President Daniel Arap Moi,

who has allowed them preferential treatment in the allocation of tenders and

263

foreign exchange. Two opposition parties have already indicated that if they
come to power they will punish Asians who have benefited from a close
relationship with the regime. All this comes at a time when growing political
violence has already caused at least a dozen deaths. “The Asians have not yet
been touched but some hear they will be attacked if the election temperature
hots up. Because of their relative wealth and their cultural aloofness, the Asians
have suffered most during past riots and political disturbances“ (DaleNews, 23
November 1992).

Rinder (1958) refers to hostility directed towards people located in the
“status gap.“ Similarly, Bonacich (1973) refers mainly to situations in which
whites hold state power and the middleman dominates trade with the indigenous
people. My own analysis, while making some refinements to the middleman
concept, is located within the South African experience and parallels the scenario
painted by Rinder and Bonacich. However, the experiences of Uganda,
Malaysia, and more recently Kenya indicate the middleman concept has
applicability in situations where whites have vacated state power and the
indigenous majority have assumed power. In other words, the middleman thesis
has relevance beyond the “status gap.“

Yancy, Eriksen, and Jualiani’s (1976) notion of emergent ethnicity proved
useful In understanding the narrowly ethnic response of Africans in the urban
areas, particulaiiy in the 19408. Africans in Durban’s Cato Manor were often
newly arrived from Natal’s rural areas. The notion of transplanted cultural

heritage could, however, not explain the unity prevalent in Cato Manor since the

264

residents often came from areas where factional fighting and bloody vengeance
reigned over any notions of a common cultural heritage (Clegg, 1981). The
intense residential concentration of Cato Manor that was spatially segregated
from other racial groups and the constant threat to their existence in the area
facilitated a unified ethnic consciousness. This was reinforced by informal
networks, common institutions and services (shebeens, the Zionist church,
cooperatives, burial, and saving societies).

The notion of emergent ethnicity has less resonance for Durban of the
19808. Here we see two broad types of responses from Africans. First, there is
the mainly older resident in the urban area who still has links with the rural areas,
believes in traditional authority (tribal chiefs), and is responsive to the calls of
Zulu nationhood espoused by Inkatha. Second, ranged against this, was a
younger grouping born in the urban area, anti-traditional authority, committed to
building an African (and often multiracial) unity across tribal lines, and militantly
opposed to the South African state and the bantustan governments. This group
saw an affinity with the UDF and Mkonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the then-
banned ANC. What began to emerge in Durban’s African townships in the 19808
was a struggle around notions of ethnicity, nationalism, traditional authority, or,
put more crudely, “the role and duties of a Zulu in urban areas.“

Yancey et al.’s theory does not envisage circumstances where the
particular form that ethnic identity takes is a site of intense struggle and conflict.
One gets the impression from their work that if there exist common occupational

positions, residential stability and concentration, and dependence on certain

265
institutions and services, there is a strong probability that an ethnic
consciousness will emerge and persist. However, there is a lack of any
consideration of how political forces can intervene in this process. The theory,
for example, cannot make sense of the violence in Natal, where Zulus are pitted
against Zulus. Part of this struggle is about the meaning and interpretation of
ethnic symbols. Yancey et al.’s theory needs to be reformulated to
accommodate forces beyond the structural-like political organizations which often

play an important part in determining the shape and form of ethnic identity.

4.3 5!! B I II E 'I [Ell . ll l'l'

One of the legacies of colonial conquest and exploitation in South Africa
was racial domination. It was upon this bequest that the policy of apartheid was
built. Central to apartheid was the designation of political rights (and to a large
extent economic opportunities) on the basis of racial criteria.

Under the system of apartheid, Africans, Indians, and coloreds were
denied political rights and were excluded from access to the major decision-
making institutions in the society. Residential, educational, and other services
and facilities were segregated by law. Interracial marriage and sexual
intercourse were prohibited by law until 1985 (Stadler, 1987, p. 12).

The central component of the policy was the creation of the homeland
system. Building on policies started by previous governments, the Nationalist
government elected to power in 1948 made the program of establishing reserves
in rural areas the cornerstone of apartheid. Totaling some 14% of the land in

South Africa, the policy envisaged upgrading the reserves into homelands that

266

would allow Africans to enjoy full political rights there. It was envisaged that the
homelands could also become fully “independent states.“ This policy allowed for
a more systematic attack on African political claims outside the homelands.
Stadler (1987) makes the point that

there was never a serious intention to make these states economically

self-sufficient, and there has never been much doubt that they are the

creatures and clients of the South African state. . . . The trappings of
independence ceremonies, separate police forces, civil services, political
executives, and legislatives have not concealed the de facto hegemony
of the South African regime. . . . The policies they pursue are continuous
with and complementary to the objectives of the South African state.

Their economies are dominated by South African interests.

Through the homelands, the state sought to create a compliant African
leadership, divide Africans along ethnic lines, and drive a wedge between those
having access and those excluded from permanent status in “white“ South Africa.
Crucially, it came to serve the purpose of securing an inexpensive and politically
acquiescent reserve army of African workers.

Attempts to characterize the nature ofthe South African state in the post-
1948 apartheid era have led to vigorous debate. An influential perspective has
been Kaplan’s (1980) argument that the capitalist state in South Africa can be
classified as a bourgeois democracy, albeit of a racially exclusive kind. Murray
(1987), while accepting the basic tenets of Kaplan’s position, contends that
Kaplan’s position conflates political representation with the franchise and
therefore ignores mechanisms other than electoral participation in a centralized

parliamentary bodythrough which the dominant classes secured hegemony over

subordinate classes. According to Murray, the historical different/'3 specifica of

267
South Africa’s capitalist state has not been its hermetically sealed “racial
exclusivity“ per se, but its racially differentiated forms of political representation.
What distinguished the bourgeois-democratic form of state is the way in which
racial domination served as a principal mode of social organization (p. 108).

Underpinning the state’s attempt to create differentiated forms of political
representation for those excluded from the central parliament was the element
of coercion to maintain hegemony. This differed with regard to the white
electorate, where consent was the central feature. Shaken by the multiracial
mobilization of the Congress Alliance of the 19508, the state also sought to
ensure that the political aspirations of Africans, Indians, and coloreds were
channeled through separate institutions. To this end the state promoted the
South African Indian Council and the Colored Representative Council in the early
19608. Largely filled with state appointees, the bodies had purely advisory
powers.

The South African state sought to ensure that economic and political
power was concentrated in white hands, that there was a steady stream of cheap
black labor, and that the disenfranchised did not pose a threat to state power or
disrupt the process of capital accumulation. It sought to achieve this by allowing
limited political representation along strict racial and ethnic lines and prohibiting
interracial political bodies. Underpinning this was a barrage of laws and an all-
pervasive and sophisticated repressive apparatus. It was this system that led

David Welsh to argue that black people “must rank among the most highly

268
controlled and bureaucratically regimented people in any modern industrial
society“ (quoted in Murray, 1987, p. 99).

This form of control gave the police force a particular profile. The police
force priorities lay with enforcing influx regulations, controlling the liquor trade,
and political repression. with the middle and upper echelons of the police force
staffed exclusively by whites displaying open allegiance to the ruling National
Party, it was not surprising that the police were often accused of being unwilling
to prevent violence within and between black communities unless it constituted
a broader challenge to white authority. After all, conflagration within black
communities gave credence to the prevailing apartheid ideology that Africans
were inherently violent and relationships between racial and ethnic groups were
inherently antagonistic.

With the persistence of ethnic identification in Africa that often translated
into politicized communalism, numerous state strategies have been mooted and
implemented to deal with the phenomenon of the persistence of ethnic
identification in Africa. While a comprehensive survey was beyond the scope of
this study, a brief review of such strategies, which tried either to suppress
ethnicity or privilege it, will be attempted.

The most immediate state reaction was a form of authoritarian
containment, what Kasfir (1975) referred to as “departicipation.“ This usually
took the form of military intervention or one-party regimes (or some combination

of the two).

269

Young (1986) points out that containment and departicipation had
immediate benefits in dampening intercommunal tensions. However, he also
argues that

the authoritarian state has its own infirrnities over time. Its powerholding

groups may be drawn from narrow ethnic segments, as in Idi Amin’s

Uganda. Containment lowers political emotions but does not necessarily

win consensus. . . . Autocratic containment policies do not necessarily

suppress ethnicity along with dissent. Rather, they force cultural pluralism
into informal channels, which may themselves become institutionalized.

(p. 128)

Another strategy designed to deal with politicized communalism i8
consociationalism. This model associated with Arend Lijphart proposes a system
of consensual multiethnic power sharing as opposed to majority rule. The basic
argument is that a plural (deeply divided) society can become stable and
democratic through elite accommodation and cooperation (grand coalition). The
autonomy of deeply divided societies is institutionally guaranteed (segmented
autonomy), and there is strong respect for principles of proportionality (in
elections, allocating civil service appointments, and granting government
subsidies), as well as mutual veto rights (Taylor, 1992, p. 91). Lijphart’s work
has generated immense interest in South Africa (see, e.g., Taylor, 1992).

Rather than attempting to abolish or weaken divisions, under
consociationalism ethnic polarization into communal blocs is encouraged,
institutionally entrenched, and Iegitimated. For Lijphart, interethnic contact is

seen inevitably to lead to hostility, and segmented autonomy is designed to limit

the potential of interethnic contact. .

270

Taylor points out that Lijphart accepts the basic tenet of apartheiduthat
ethnic contact leads to friction, and therefore segregation must be pursued.
Thus, Lijphart appears as an apologist of apartheid policy. “Ethnic differences
are an unalterable fact and what the govemment’s widely despised policies have
succeeded in doing is not to manufacture artificially but to counteract and soften
them artificially“ (Lijphart, 1989; quoted in Taylor, 1992, p. 5).

This study has indicated that it is precisely the competitive relations and
the lack of interdependence that created the conditions for lndo-African violence.
The challenge is not to politicize ethnicity by entrenching ethnic groups into
communal blocs, but to create the conditions for interdependence.

The different attempts to deal with ethnicity have politicized it. Even
authoritarian containment has forced cultural pluralism into informal channels,
which then became institutionalized. Kofele-Kale (1984), writing about
Cameroon between 1960 and 1982, captures this process succinctly:

The scramble to secure, establish and consolidate an ethnic power base

has contributed to the politicization of ethnic loyalties at both the

leadership and mass levels. To the extent that identification with an
ethnic group was a necessary precondition for remaining in power, the
need to rekindle banked ethnic feelings and to rediscover long forgotten

ethnic roots became an all-consuming passion for the ethnic barons. . . .

At the mass level . . . is the inevitable retreat into an ethnic sanctuary

since the individual peasant or worker now sees the structure as the only

reliable avenue for upward mobility. For these people, politics now
revolves around the ethnic group and its spokesmen and women since it
was they who ultimately can deliver essential services to their

communities. (quoted in Young, 1986, p. 129)

Mare is entirely correct when he argues that ethnicity, as a social identity
in South Africa, needs to be separated from political mobilization, manipulation,

and the farming of ethnic sentiments. The ethnic identities held by individuals

271
should be protected in a Bill of Rights based on individual rights and freedoms.
There should be no constitutional provision for the rewarding of groups along the
lines of their group identity. At a general level, where ethnicity motivates
immediate behavior, it will have to be sensitively and self-consciously
depoliticized and severed from the arena of competition and resources, privilege,
power, and rights in the future transformation (Mare, 1992, p. 107).

There are strong Indicators that the major South African political parties
are not counting on a narrow ethnic base. The ANC’s 48th National Congress
in July 1991 elected a National Executive with a 34% “non African“ membership
(mm, August 1991). Also, as Taylor (1992) points out, “all ANC
campaigns are marked by non-racialism in the design of posters, make-up of
crowds and voicing of aims; the history of resistance to apartheid has a strong
non-racial thread“ (p. 117). The erstwhile Afrikaner National Party has also
moved beyond ethnic confines. The majority of MP’s in the Indian and colored
sections of the tricameral parliament now belong to the National Party. A
Cabinet reshuffle has seen coloreds and Indians enter this exclusively white
domain. Even Inkatha is accelerating its drive to recruit membership in Indian
and white areas. It has already succeeded in attracting a few senior National
and Democratic Party members into its ranks. Its strident Zulu nationalism is
being replaced by calls for a broader South Africanism, albeit with strong regional
underpinnings. This move has probably been motivated by authoritative surveys
Indicating that the ANC holds a majority of Zulu support outside Natal (Orkin,

1989, p. 83). Inkatha leadership has realized it cannot rely exclusively on a Zulu

272

base. Its call for federalism and/or strong regional govemment is likely to
galvanize considerable support among whites and Indians in Natal.

The latest deal between the National Party and the ANC calls for a five-
year government of national unity, consisting ofall parties winning more than 5%
of the vote in a nonracial national election. This deal has discarded notions of
entrenching ethnic groups into communal blocs. If parties want to be major
players in the new government, they will have to have an appeal beyond an
ethnic base. The ANC’s agreement to a government of national unity indicates
‘ its willingness to drop any notion of identifying itself with the “nation,“ of being the
voice of the “people,“ and propagating the policy choices of one party as the
general will of people as a whole. This was the path followed by many dominant

parties in Africa with disastrous consequences.

4.4 IhiEutuLeannnn-Afflnanfinlaflnns

It has become an almost cliched response from black extra-parliamentary
political organizations that political violence is the result of the intensification of
the apartheid system. However, the present conjuncture is witnessing a
heightening of violence at a time when apartheid institutions and policies are
being eroded.

Hindson and Morris (1991) have shown how declining economic growth,
rapid urbanization, and the growth of shackland residential areas have been part
of the very process that has caused massive dislocation, upheaval, violence, and
a general heightening of political conflict within the urban metropolitan areas.

The harsh reality, they argue, is that racial, ethnic, and class antagonisms held

273
in check under classic apartheid have re-emerged in the present period of
liberalization and deracialization.

In Natal, central to the present violence is the growth of shantytowns on
the metropolitan periphery of Durban. In the absence of central or local state
control, many of the shantytowns have fallen under the sway of warlords.

In the absence of legal mechanisms for the extraction of payments and
the exercise of control, warlords rely on sublieutenants. The warlords’ capacity
for force has often to be demonstrated. The warlord authority structure,
according to Morris (1992), is bedeviled by internal rivalry, intrigue, and disloyalty
(p. 6). Lieutenants continuously fight for favor or attempt to hive off to form their
own squatter communities. As a result, many of the shantytowns are marked by
internal power struggles. Warlords are also constantly on the lookout for more
land because it is the means of appropriating surplus in the form of rent, taxes,
levies, and so on.

There has also been increasing conflict between shantytown residents
and residents of the formal African townships. In many instances, attacks
emanating out of the squatter camps and led by warlords have been crude
“booty“-gathering raids, with houses being looted and the “spoils" spirited into the
shantytowns.

In one such raid in December 1989, armed men from the Lindelani
squatter camp entered F section of the neighboring formal African township of
Ntuzuma. Fifty-one houses were looted, seven vehicles burnt, and several

people killed. Newspaper reports indicated that many of the Iooters were

274
newcomers to the urban areas recruited into the raiding parties with the promise
that lfthey joined they could keep what they looted (NataUMtnnss. 8 December
1989; Sunnaxlflnunn. 8 December 1989).

Commenting on the raid , Minaar (1992) argues that, beyond the ongoing
struggle between Inkatha and UDF supporters, the ostensible reason for the
attack was the objective of the warlords to engender a climate of fear so that
people would abandon their areas. This would allow the warlords to move in and
rent out the land, thus increasing their tax base. It is noteworthy that Lindelani
squatters characterized the African township dwellers of Ntuzuma as “lndians,“
signifying squatter perceptions of better living conditions in Ntuzuma and
justifying attacks on this basis (South, 20 December 1989).

The spatial location of Indian townships makes them vulnerable to attack
from shantytown residents. The large working-class Indian townships of Phoenix
and Chatsworth are contiguous to African residential areas. Over the past few
years, African squatters from Inanda have sporadically entered the Indian
township of Phoenix and looted households. In some areas of Phoenix that
border Inanda, houses have been abandoned after consistent attacks. In recent
times, African squatters have taken to occupying vacant land in Indian suburbs,
producing new sources of tension. One such area is Reservoir Hills. A survey
conducted in 1988 found that 96% of the Indian residents objected to the
squatters, 25% were in favor of the forced removal of squatters, while 13% felt
that influx control laws should be reintroduced to curb the number of Africans

entering the urban areas (Chetty, 1988, pp. 38-44).

275

Indian community leaders have accused the squatters of corrupting Indian
youth by selling alcohol and drugs. Neighborhood watches have sprung up in
the Indian suburbs. Some of the watches have been accused of becoming
vigilantes, enforcing an after-dark curfew on African movement in Indian areas
(D. Soni, personal memo).

The erosion of apartheid and the concomitant “rising expectations“ are
likely to see competition in the labor market. Here Africans are likely to come up
against Indians dominating semi-skilled and supervisory positions in the Durban-
Pinetown area. Because of the better educational levels of the Indian workforce,
they will be difficult to dislodge, increasing antagonism.

The present conjuncture throws up increased possibilities for ethnic
mobilization. Young (1986) points out that the dominance of a given cultural
segment and social class may be preserved over long periods by prescriptive
belief, external support, or simple coercion (p. 123). At those points of historical
rupture when these institutions of domination dissolve, there is a high possibility
of violent confrontation, as social revolution is fused to communal animosities.
Young points to the African examples of Rwanda in 1959 and Zanzibar in 1964.
In Asia, a similar escalation of violence accompanied the last days of the British
Raj in India and the immediate post-independence period. Singh, in an
introduction to a book by Akbar (1988), argues that Mahatma Gandhi believed
that Hindu-Muslim riots were engineered by the British in pursuance of their
divide-and-rule policy, and that when the British were finally driven out of India,

the two communities would learn to live in peace and harmony. Singh makes the

276

point that the British often prevented riots from escalating, especially if the
perception was created that the British did not have the capacity to maintain
stability. It was only during the last years of the Raj that Hindu-Muslim conflicts
achieved the proportions of civil wars in which people were killed by the
thousands. It is estimated that in the two months following the partition of the
country, ten million people had been rendered homeless and almost half a million
were dead. Violence escalated, not when British rule was at its height, but when
it was at its weakest.

Ethnicity is a powerful mobilizer because the symbolic resources available
are more powerful and involve more intensely felt emotions and fears than are
likely to emanate out of a class framework. Bell (1975) contends that
contemporary ethnicity is more salient than class “because it can combine an
interest with an affective tie“ (p. 169). Young (1986) points out that in addition
to the larger reservoir of affective symbols for subjective mobilization,

political claims and action by communal segments tend to have high

visibility. Because cultural pluralism frequently rests on readily perceived

markers—language, phenotypical stereotypes, publicly observed rituals—-
on the crucial issues of overall resource allocations and domination of
public institutions, communal imbalances are swift to be recognised and

have more immediate emotional impact. (p. 122)

In Natal, one has a political leadership in the form of Inkatha, which is
prepared to utilize ethnic symbols (whatever their historical validity) to mobilize
membership. This appeal is often couched in an anti-Indianism. This gels with
material interests of its support base when Africans, in the deadly competition for

scarce resources (land, housing, jobs, services, and the like), perceive Indians

as advantaged viathe apartheid system. Increasingly, Indian community leaders

277
have responded to deracialization with appeals to the need to maintain the
“Indian way of life.“ Young (1986) points out that with the onset of electoral
politics in Africa, many politicians “found the ethnic pathway to clientele-creation
irresistible as the surest and swiftest way to consolidate a following“ (p. 122).
Many politicians in Natal, both in the African and Indian communities, are making
similar noises.

lndo—African relations have to be understood in the context of the effects
of the decline and decay of apartheid a8 a coherent and articulated system. The
process of decline and decay has, in particular, affected the struggles of larger
numbers of poor people for resources in conditions where the chiefly rural order
is less able than before to deliver acceptable conditions for subsistence
according to older lines of clientage.

Hindson and Morris (1991) point out that the breaching of the spatial order
of apartheid has unleashed an often violent struggle for access to basic
resources-land, water, shelter-in as close proximity as is possible to the
economic and productive core of the province. It is, thus, the decline and decay
of apartheid, rather than its intensification, that has increased the possibility of
violence, of the breakdown of law and order. It is precisely this conjuncture that
has thrown up increased possibilities for ethnic competition, lending itself to

conflict and violence between African and Indian.

4.5 [III IEI I' III El'l' [lll' B'Ill

The present violence in South Africa, widely portrayed in the media as

ethnic conflict, has generated an increased interest in consociationalism. This

278

view, popularized by Arend Lijphart, proposes a system of consensual
multiethnic power sharing, as opposed to majority rule. The way to avoid ethnic
conflict, Lijphart (1985) argues, is to ensure that ethnic interests are met through
communal blocs thatare institutionally entrenched and Iegitimated (pp. 106-107).
This segmental autonomy, according to Lijphart, limits the potential of Interethnic
contact, which is seen to invariably erupt into hostility. Lijpart’s views, cited
above, that ethnic differences are unalterable and that government policies have
counteracted and softened them, resonate with the National Party’s apartheid
policies.

This study has indicated that it is precisely the competitive relations and
the lack of interdependence that created the conditions for Indo-African violence.
The challenge is not to politicize ethnicity by entrenching ethnic groups into
communal blocs, but to create the conditions for interdependence. Aronson and
Bridgeman (1984) have shown how structured interdependence in the
desegregated classroom in schools increases the self-esteem, the morale, the
interpersonal attraction, and the empathy of students across racial and ethnic
divisions. At a general level, where ethnicity motivates immediate behavior, it will
have to be sensitively and self-consciously depoliticized and severed from the
arena of competition and resources, privilege, power, and rights in the future
transformation. The ethnic identities held by individuals should be protected in
a bill of rights based on individual rights and freedoms. There should be no
constitutional provision for the rewarding of groups because of their group

Identity.

279

This must be accompanied by a determined program to reduce
inequalities. As Allport (1954) reminds us,

Prejudice . . . may be reduced by equal status contact between majority

and minority groups in the pursuit of common goals. The effect is greatly

enhanced if this contact is sanctioned by institutional supports (i.e., by
law, custom, or local atmosphere), and provided it is of a sort that leads
to the perception of common interests and common humanity between

giggibers of the two groups. (quoted in Aronson 8 Bridgeman, 1984, p.

While these issues will have to await the renewing of the negotiating
process and will, to a large extent, be determined by the particular strengths of
the ANC and the National Party during this conjuncture, it is important that the
Lijphart thesis be challenged by research findings of the sort that this study has
produced, as this will shape attitudes at the negotiating table.

There are immediate issues, however, that can be addressed more
speedily. This pertains to the squatter settlements which often border Indian
townships. It is here that the most immediate danger of lndo-African conflict lies.
For example, houses in Phoenix that border Inanda have been abandoned
because of the threats of attacks. Residents in Phoenix have responded with
neighborhood watches. These patrols have virtually imposed a night curfew on
African presence in Phoenix. The situation demands a coherent policy towards
squatter settlements.

The following are some broad recommendations in this regard:

1. One of the legacies of apartheid is that while white local

municipalities have substantial local autonomy, African local authorities are tied

to central or KwaZulu government control. African local authorities also have no

280
viable tax base. First, one needs to establish some coherence to urban
government. A first step would be the creation of a single metropolitan region
with a single tax base. This could be done by eradicating separate town councils
for white and African areas and creating one controlling council for the Durban
Functional Region. This would ensure some coherence for urban development
and create one tax base for the area.

2. One of the consequences of apartheid planning is the availability
of large tracts of vacant or underutilized land close to urban opportunities
(Development Action Group, WIP, July 1992). These areas should be opened
up for low-income housing, simultaneously easing pressure on the peripheral
African areas.

3. The standardization of tenure in the KwaZulu homeland needs to
take place. Presently, one has tribal tenure, occupational rights, deed of grant,
99-year leasehold, and some freehold in operation. Also, as Minaar (1992)
points out, tenure should not be so tenuous that warlords can force occupiers off
and then squat illegally on land without fear of being evicted by the authorities (p.
16). Often, in the absence of legal tenure, the occupation rights of those
physically in possession are recognized by the authorities. This situation favors
the use of force by warlords to bring land in the immediate vicinity of their
operations under their direct control.

4. Squatter communities need official recognition. In Durban, many
squatter communities are not acknowledged by the Durban City Council and so

do not fall under KwaZulu government control either, because the land is in

 

281

“white“ South Africa. This state of limbo has allowed warlords to flourish. Once

a town board or local authority is established, the power of the warlord is

undermined. Residents would then pay their rents and levies for services (water,

lights, and refuse removal) directly to the town council.

4.6 EunhnLBnnearmnnmmmixeMnlnrine

First, we need an adequate theory of ethnicity, something that I do not

think we have, at least not in South Africa. Such a theory, if it hopes to assist in

understanding the violence, would not just have to account for the continued

presence and effect of ethnic forms of consciousness, but would also need to

integrate within it:

the relationship and intersection of nationalism(s) and ethnicity;
the relationship/intersection of culture and ethnicity (I8 ethnicity
merely culture “gone bad,“ i.e., the negative ways in which cultural
specificities express themselves in conflict situations? Or are
culture and ethnicity two separate but related phenomena?);

the relationship between ethnicity and material deprivation or
privilege, In particular the claim to land and associated resources:
the creation/manipulation of ethnicity through the practices of
colonialism and apartheid, and the subsequent re-
creation/manipulation of ethnicity by particular figures (such as
Buthelezi). Important in this would be the creation, manipulation,
and/or existence of “differences“ between groups which assist in

the definitions of “insiders“ and “outsiders“; and

282
- the propensity toward violence as a means of problem solving
within any particular ethnic group, how this varies between ethnic
groups, and under which conditions this propensity is likely to be
“triggered.“

We must tie this search for a theory of ethnicity to a theoretical approach
that attempts to integrate all the varied factors that come to bear in violent
situations, of which ethnicity is but one. My point is that if we accept that the
current violence is multidimensional (being influenced by economic issues,
politics, national and regional forces, psychological factors, cultural differences,
historical influences, and so on), then a theory of ethnicity, however elaborate,
can only help to explain a small, albeit necessary, part of the violence.

Second, we have very few ethnographic studies in South Africa. Such
accounts would focus on the lived reality of the individuals of ethnic groups in
daily life. The accounts need not focus on violent incidents alone, as one can
probably Ieam a lot from studies that focus on “normal“ daily life practices of the
particular cultural/ethnic groups with which one is concerned. Here I have in
mind issues like authority and decision-making structures and processes, age
and gender relations, and so on.

Most research on violence actually lacks detailed accounts or
explanations by the antagonists themselves. Our data sources are extremely
limited due to the kind of reporting and monitoring of violent» that is going on.
Reporters seldom actually interview the antagonists themselves and generally

focus on the victims in the aftermath of the violence. Likewise, monitoring groups

283
seldom give accounts by the “actors“ themselves and tend to rely on “informants“
who paint a particular picture, not necessarily consciously or incorrectly, but
nevertheless an interpretation that leaves out aspects that may be valuable to
researchers. Can this be corrected by researchers actually ferreting out the
antagonists?

A major facet of violence that we know very little of in South Africa is that
of the psychology of the crowd—that is, of violence that is mass-based and not
perpetrated by hit squads/assassins. Even in the latter, however, a
psychological explanation could be informative, in this case focusing on the
individual rather than the crowd. I get the impression that there are many
thousands of people who have been involved in acts of violence (against their will
or othenivise) who have never managed to eliminate their sense of guilt, if you
will, a widespread guilty conscience exists that we have not understood or dealt
with.

The dynamics of crowds has likewise received little attention in the South
African literature on violence. Here I am thinking of the mechanisms of crowd
formation and mobilization, the slogans, the statements by leaders within the
crowd, and the like, as well as of the actual spatial configuration and setting. Is
the spatial setting conducive to violent outbreaks in, for example, the central
business district where crowds are hemmed in by buildings and streets and their
exits restricted by such physical factors as well as by the spatial location of police
and oppositional groups? How does this differ in townships, squatter

settlements, and hostels? What are the triggers that can turn a peaceful crowd

284
into a violent one? Actions such as police bnitality, attacks on vulnerable
individuals, brandishing of weapons, derogatory slogans, and the like, all play a
part in this “triggering,“ as does the lack of prior contact between the organizers
of marches and the authorities.

Organized and spontaneous crowd formations also require further
research and comparison. How do spontaneous crowds form and develop? Are
organized crowds less likely to respond violently than spontaneous crowds? I
would think so, but this requires investigation.

The Iegitimation of the use of violence by individuals or by “groups“ and
political or other leaders also requires further investigation. At an individual level,
this could only be done by talking to the actual perpetrators of violence in any
incident. Do crowds or individuals or leaders actually believe their use of
violence to be legitimate? If so, why, and what needs to be done so as to
remove the “need“ to resort to violence as a means of expression (in the last
instance)?

The actions of police, hitmen, assassination squads, and the like, in
perpetrating violence need exposure. Their links to the state or other groups,
their motivations, and the extent of their operations need clarity.

I think that the relationship between age, gender, and violence requires
further elaboration. To some extent, the political violence has a generational and
gender element to it. On one side, Inkatha supporters appear to be largely older
men (but some younger men are also present), while on the other side, ANC

supporters appear to be largely young men/youth. I am talking here of violent

 

285
confrontations and not of general supporters. Is there a propensity for violence
among particular youth, for example, the poor, the unemployed, and so on? If
this is so, why is it, and how can we change this? What has been the experience
of women in violence, as participants or mainly as victims? How does this relate
to ethnicity, machoism, and feminism?

The presence of alternative socializing mechanisms needs to be
considered in a period where the family is torn apart and where schools have
virtually ceased to function. Here I am thinking of whether the political or gang
stnictures of the youth fulfill a socializing role. What other mechanisms/
structures fulfill this role?

The role of “homelands“ and traditional authority structures in the violence
is important. Is the current violence an indication that such groups see their days
as numbered and are resorting to violence as a last-ditch attempt to entrench
their present position? To what extent can a “modem“ urban culture coexist
peacefully with a traditional premodem and rurally based culture? Are we
witnessing the birth pangs of a “modemizing' society being torn from its roots?

The actions of landlords and how these threaten other authority figures
may well be important, too. What are their relations to the land, the traditional
authorities, and the tenants? Is this the birth of a nascent capitalist class based
within the sphere of reproduction rather than production?

What is the role of traditional healers, witches, and the like, in the
violence? I have heard mention that each side in a conflict often has the “help“

of a sangoma to ensure their victory. Is the side with the most powerful sangoma

286
victorious in the conflict? How do the actors themselves conceive of the

assistance of such parties?

4.7 antnbutinmntthnfitudmndfinnnludmnfinmadss

Ethnic divisions and conflict in South Africa are viewed as either being
primordial or the result of state manipulation. This study has shown how ethnicity
is constructed and manipulated from above. However, it has also been sensitive
to the popular impulses that come from below. Ethnicity has an existence
beyond a mental construct. Whatever ethnicity’s imaginary and ideological
status, it also has a real, concrete, and material existence. There is something
there that we call ethnicity, whether it be “signs“ (displays) or the playing out of
the social identity as individuals negotiate their way through certain social
relations. It is held that this approach is much more productive to understanding
the bases for ethnic divisions than the primordial or state-manipulation
explanations.

This study also sends a clear signal to progressive social scientists that
we have to understand the basis of ethnic divisions. The understanding of the
basis of ethnic conflict has been a neglected area of study. A central reason for
this neglect is that progressive social scientists in South Africa believe that a
discussion of ethnic divisions gives the concept an unwarranted status and
deflects the debate from the essential problem of the deeper forces that create
and exploit ethnicity. To argue that to study lndo-African violence gives the
concept of ethnic divisions unwarranted status (as many colleagues at the

University of Durban-Westville have argued!) does not hold water. As Guy

287

(1992) reminds us, whatever one’s attitude to the nature and reality of ethnic
conflict may be, ethnic categories are being used and abused increasingly by
participants and observers both inside and outside South Africa and are
reinforced daily in the media-domestically and internationally. Ethnicity in South
Africa has become an issue to which all those with an interest In South Africa
have to respond, if for no other reason than if one avoids the recognition and
study, this leaves the field open to its abuse. This is an intellectual battle to be
fought that will not be won if progressive social scientists ignore the issue. This
is not just an academic battle. It has implications for urgent questions of policy.

The study also debunks a number of widely held views in South African
social science on the nature of collective violence. It has shown that participants
in the riots do not represent the “scum of the earth.“ Rather, participants are
typical of the neighborhood in which the riots occurred. Riots cannot be seen as
instrumental or consummatory; rather, they are a mixture of both. The study
illustrated that a more useful approach is to explore the changing balance over
time between what one may call the expressive and instrumental aspects of
different types of disorders. To divide the actions of individuals into rational
versus emotional irrational types as previous studies of the riots have done is to
deny the complexity of human behavior. The study also goes beyond naming an
event as ethnic conflict based on primordial sentiments or black-on-black
violence and seeing that as a form of explanation. This tells us nothing about

why violence takes place in particular historical periods.

288

Almost all theories of civil violence have at some time been hailed as
capturing the ultimate origins and nature of civil violence—wherever and
whenever it occurs. This study supports the view of Rule and McPhail that riots
are complex phenomena that cannot be understood by utilizing one theory. Riots
display a heterogeneity and are best explained by a combination of theories.

The central contribution of this study is to discern, first, the general
conditions that engender hostility between the host society and middleman
groups. It then specifies under what conditions this hostility can translate into
violence.

Middleman minorities are not an anachronistic aberration from traditional
societies. They are a pervasive and growing phenomenon in modern societies.
The challenge is to understand what causes them to persist and why, and under
what conditions they engender hostility and violent reaction.

Academics and the media have all too often presented ethnic violence in
South Africa in crude, stereotypical terms of tribal Africa. It is hoped that my
approach encourages a more nuanced, subtle, contextualized research agenda
into the issues of ethnic identity and conflict, and in this way contributes to the

intensifying struggle for democracy in South Africa.

APPENDIX: GLOSSARY

Amalaita—Stick fighters, a street desperado.

Black—The terms colored, African, white, and Indian in this thesis refer to the
statutory definition, which existed until recently, of persons in South Africa. The
term “black“ refers to coloreds, Indians, and Africans.

lmpi—An armed band of men, especially those engaging in faction fights.

lnduna-Councilor or headman appointed by a chief; African foreman of any
band of workers.

Kia—Detached servants’ quarters.

Mkhumbane—This was the name Africans in Durban used to refer to Cato
Manor. The name came from a stream that flows through the area. Mkhumbane
and Cato Manor are used interchangeably in the text.

PangauA large, broad-bladed knife used for heavy cutting of bush, etc, and as
a weapon.

Sangoma-An African witch doctor, usually a woman, often claiming
supernatural powers of divination.

Shebeen—An establishment in which formerly illicit home-brewed beer was sold,

or other beer was sold illicitly without a license, usually by African women known
as“queensf

This section has relied heavily on J. Brandford and W. Brandford, Dictinnarym
SnuttiAfzicanjnnlisn (1991)-

289

 

Akt

Api

Ail

Ari

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