Further Complexity:
Whites, Indians, Coloureds
The initial apartheid vision of a four-segment society—of Whites, Coloureds, Indians, and Africans—is confounded by the social complexity, not merely of the African category, but of the Indian, Coloured, and White categories as well. The picture of ideological and ascriptive divisions among Africans is mirrored by similar divisions within each of the other categories.
Political differences among Whites are greater now than they have
[106] Mayer, Townsmen or Tribesmen? p. 293.
[107] See Hanf et al., South Africa, p. 246; Cornevin, "Populations noires d'Afrique du Sud," p. 43. For the roles of historical memory and warfare in ethnic relations, see Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986), pp. 30–31, 37–41.
[108] See Winnie Mandela, Part of My Soul Went with Him (New York: Norton, 1984), p. 48: " . . . you tell yourself: 'If they failed in those nine Xhosa wars, I am one of them, and I will start from where those Xhosas left off and get my land back.'"
[109] Shula Marks, "Patriotism, Patriarchy and Purity: Natal and the Politics of Zulu Ethnic Consciousness," in Vail, ed., The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa, p. 233.
[110] See Delius, The Land Belongs to Us .
been since before 1948.[111] The most obvious difference is in the realm of party competition and the divergent opinions it reflects. Between the 1987 and 1989 elections to the White chamber of parliament, the political spectrum spread out considerably. The Conservative Party moved from 27 percent of the vote in 1987 to 31 percent in 1989. In 1987, the liberal opposition consisted of the Progressive Federal Party (PFP). Together with the small New Republic Party, the PFP had 16 percent of the vote. By 1989, the liberal opposition became consolidated in a new Democratic Party (DP), consisting of the former PFP and a number of defectors from the Nationalists. In the 1989 elections, the DP gained 20 percent of the vote. Quite correctly, the National Party had pointed out in its campaign that the Democrats were not committed to a White minority veto in a future South Africa. For the first time, moreover, an anti-apartheid party in parliament had more than a token share of Afrikaner support.[112] Reciprocally, a great many English-speaking Whites gave their support to the National Party.[113] Ethnicity is no longer the firm predictor of political attitudes within the White category that it once was. This, a mere dozen years after Black South Africans had begun to make sharper distinctions between Afrikaner and English Whites.
Changes among Afrikaner elites are palpable. In 1985, a "Stellenbosch '85" discussion group was formed at the Afrikaans-language university that has nurtured a large number of South African cabinet ministers. Out of its discussions came an acrimonious meeting of some 28 leading Afrikaner intellectuals with then-President P. W. Botha. The disaffection of these intellectuals coincided with the defection of several Afrikaner politicians from the National Party in 1987. These streams fed directly into the new Democratic Party.
The roots of Afrikaner liberalism, particularly in the Cape, go back much further, but its political significance is traceable more immediately to the declining legitimacy of the old regime of race relations among many educated Afrikaners.[114] Among such people, there was a good
[111] For a denial of any change, based on an eccentric reading of the evidence, see Bruce W. Nelan, "Changes in South Africa," Foreign Affairs 69, no. 1 (January 1990): 35–51.
[112] For some of the sources of this change, see John D. Brewer, "Black Protest in South Africa's Crisis: A Comment on Legassick," African Affairs 85, no. 2 (April 1986): 283–94.
[113] See Hennie Kotzé, "A Whole New Poll Game for '89 Nats," Sunday Times (Johannesburg), August 6, 1989. In 1977, by contrast, only 28 percent of English speakers were Nationalist supporters. H. Lever, "Public Opinion and Voting," in Anthony de Crespigny and Robert Schrire, eds., The Government and Politics of South Africa (Cape Town: Juta, 1978), p. 153.
[114] For an example, see the HSRC Investigation into Intergroup Relations, The South African Society, p. 162, which called for "the establishment of public institutions that areworthy of trust and acceptance." At the meeting called in 1985 to discuss this report, there were repeated denunciations of the government's race relations policies by Afrikaner academics. Five years earlier, P. W. Botha had been heckled by students at the University of Stellenbosch.
deal of impatience with the government's reluctance to commit itself to fundamental change.
There can be no more graphic demonstration of this shift than the changing position of the secret society called the Afrikaner Broederbond. The Broederbond has historically numbered among its members virtually the entire Afrikaner political leadership, including the cabinet and three-quarters of the National Party members of parliament, and it has been described as "a secret communication channel between the government and the Afrikaner elite."[115] Its 1986 confidential document, "Basic Political Values for the Survival of the Afrikaner," had a conventional title, but its content was anything but conventional. Reflecting a certain blurring of ethnic lines, the document equated the political interests of the Afrikaner with those of "the white man" in general.[116] More remarkably, the paper went on to assert that the "abolition of statutory discrimination measures must not be seen as concessions but as a prerequisite for survival," that "there can no longer be a white government," that Christian principles require that a government "must govern fairly and justly in respect of all its subjects," and that "the exclusion of effective black sharing in political processes at the highest level is a threat to the survival of the white man, which cannot be countered by maintaining the status quo or by a further consolidation of power in white hands."[117] And, to be sure that the message had been received, the Broederbond paper noted, almost en passant, that "the head of government does not necessarily have to be white. . . ."[118]
Not surprisingly, these statements produced a storm of right-wing invective. By South African standards, they are revolutionary formulations, illustrating both the growing social convergence between English and Afrikaans speakers[119] and the now-legitimate occupation by Afrikaners of positions all along the spectrum of White political opinion.
To both of these tendencies, there are limits. Although the boundary
[115] Hermann Giliomee, "The National Party and the Afrikaner Broederbond," in Price and Rosberg, eds., The Apartheid Regime, p. 41.
[116] Afrikaner Broederbond, "Basic Political Values for the Survival of the Afrikaner" (N.p., 1986; unpublished paper), pp. 1, 2, 7.
[117] Ibid., pp. 6, 8, 6, 7, respectively.
[118] Ibid., p. 7.
[119] "A common white South African nationalism is well on the way to replacing the historical group identities." Adam, "The South African Power Elite," p. 99. Cf. Hanf et al., South Africa, pp. 169–73.
between English and Afrikaners is less firm than it once was, it has not been obliterated. Recollections of the Anglo-Boer Wars and of divergent attitudes toward European fascism in the 1930s and 1940s have been muted but not wholly transcended. A 1989 survey of members of the Democratic Party, which had not yet chosen a leader, showed that English-speaking party members supported Denis Worrall, an English speaker, for the leadership position, over Wynand Malan, an Afrikaner, by 52 percent to 15 percent. Among Afrikaners, 44 percent chose Malan, while only 28 percent chose Worrall.[120] Even in the Democratic Party, ethnic differences among Whites have political significance. Moreover, the two groups are not evenly distributed along the political spectrum. Afrikaners are a decided minority among Democrats, and English speakers are a rarity in the Conservative Party, which, while the Democrats were opposing apartheid, was attempting to reinstate segregation in Boksburg, a municipality whose town council the Conservatives controlled.[121]
The limits of Afrikaner liberalism are emphasized in a series of papers based on sample surveys of university students, conducted by Jannie Gagiano.[122] Gagiano identifies a number of important differences between Afrikaner Democratic Party and Afrikaner National Party supporters—including the firm rejection by the former of a White-controlled government—and he documents the extent to which White students are groping for an alternative to the status quo. Nevertheless, he is at pains to underscore the extent to which Afrikaner students remain symbolically attached to the institutions of the polity, despite the ferment around them.
If Whites present a picture of some interethnic convergence coupled with ideological divergence, somewhat analogous trends are present among both Indians and Coloureds. Both of these groups are ideologically conflicted, and the Indians are ethnically divided as well.
Indians are nearly everywhere a socially divided community, and South Africa is no exception. Between the descendants of the initial inden-
[120] Sunday Times (Johannesburg), August 6, 1989.
[121] Daily News (Durban), August 2, 1989.
[122] Jannie Gagiano, "The Scope of Regime Support: A Case Study," in Hermann Giliomee and Lawrence Schlemmer, eds., Negotiating South Africa's Future (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989), pp. 52–62; Jannie Gagiano, "Ruling Group Cohesion in South Africa: A Study of Political Attitudes among White University Students" (paper presented at the Biennial Conference of the Political Science Association of South Africa, October 9–11, 1989); Jannie Gagiano, "Meanwhile, Back on the 'Boereplaas,'" Politikon 13, no. 2 (December 1986): 3–23.
tured laborers and the later merchants, there are predictable class differences. To some extent, these are compounded by overlapping ascriptive divisions of language, caste, and religion. A working-class person is more likely to be Tamil, Hindu, and low caste. A businessman is more likely to be Gujarati, perhaps Muslim, and not low caste. To some extent, such differences translate into political positions, for the Indians are a polarized community. Following Gandhi, many of them have joined the Natal and Transvaal Indian Congresses and aligned with the UDF. On the other hand, the serious Durban anti-Indian riots of 1949, and some much milder but threatening episodes in 1974, 1985, and 1990, have served to remind many Indians of the dangers that have befallen Asian communities elsewhere in Africa. We have seen that Coloureds and Indians usually are ranked by Africans as rather distant on social distance scales. But there are differences. In the nationwide HSRC study, Coloureds and Afrikaners received the least positive adjectival ratings, and Indians placed closer to the middle of the scale.[123] However, in the study of Durban, where most Indians live, social distance was greatest from Indians.[124]
Indians, therefore, have reasons for a certain conservatism, and there is no doubt that the unrest of the mid-1980s accelerated it. In a 1985 Durban survey that asked the respondents' choice of South African leader, most Indians (53.4 percent) selected none other than P. W. Botha; none chose Tutu, only 3.7 percent chose Mandela, and 3.1 percent chose Boesak. The African figures are in stark contrast, with a majority for Mandela, 11.9 percent for Tutu, 13.6 percent for Boesak, and none for Botha.[125]
These results do not mean that Indians rushed to embrace their new legislative chamber. On the contrary, only about 20 percent of registered voters cast a ballot in 1984, dividing their support between two parties. Perhaps a better measure of Indian allegiance comes from a question on organizational support in the same 1985 survey. Half of all Africans gave their support to the UDF, and only 18.5 percent professed support for no organization. By contrast, only 8.7 percent of Indians
[123] HSRC Investigation into Intergroup Relations, The South African Society , pp. 81–82.
[124] Du Toit, "Ethnicity, Neighborliness, and Friendship among Urban Africans in South Africa," p. 153. See also Mann, Attitudes towards Ethnic Groups," p. 64.
[125] Meer and Reynolds, "Sample Survey of Perceptions of the Durban Unrest," p. 262.
supported the UDF, and another 8.7 percent supported the Indian parliamentary chamber. Half of all Indians professed support for no organization.[126] Bifurcated between pro-UDF activists and pro-system moderates, the Indians are a community divided, in-between, and heavily apolitical.
To some extent, the same applies to the so-called Coloured community, which derives from a variety of sources: ex-slaves in the Cape, people of mixed Khoi or San and European ancestry, and "Malays" brought by the Dutch from Indonesia. For some purposes, the differences between the largely-Muslim Malays and other Coloureds are significant, but they do not coincide with firm political lines. The watershed events for Coloureds appear to have been their disfranchisement in the early apartheid years and their massive forced removal in the 1960s, under the Group Areas Act, from parts of Cape Town in which they had long resided.[127] Two-thirds of those removed under the Group Areas Act were Coloured, and nearly one-third was Indian.[128] These were traumatic, bitter experiences that formed the prelude to increasing militancy, some identification with the plight of Africans, and growing rejection of the Afrikaans language, the mother tongue of most Coloureds.
In the 1984 elections to the Coloured chamber of parliament, only 30 percent of eligible voters turned out. They overwhelmingly elected members of Allan Hendrickse's Labour Party, which has repeatedly emphasized the illegitimacy of the tricameral constitutional arrangements and threatened not to participate in further elections if the system is not transformed.[129] The University of the Western Cape, officially a Coloured campus, has opened its doors to Africans and has been a center
[126] Ibid., p. 264.
[127] For the bitterness of this episode, see the novel by Richard Rive, "Buckingham Palace," District Six (Cape Town: David Philip, 1986).
[128] See Hendrik W. van der Merwe, Pursuing Justice and Peace in South Africa (London: Routledge, 1989), p. 29. In a study that followed the removals by only a few years, H. G. Viljoen found that, despite religious differences between the two groups, Indians displayed less social distance from Coloureds than from any other group. "Stereotipes en sociale afstand," p. 150. Since Viljoen had no group of Coloured respondents, we do not know whether the sentiment was reciprocated, but the finding is testimony to the power of common situation and official definitions in shaping affinities.
[129] For Labour Party noncooperation with government initiatives in the (Coloured) House of Representatives, see Cooper et al., Race Relations Survey, 1987/88 , pp. xxxv–xxxvi. See also Hennie Kotzé, "Adapting or Dyeing: Parliamentary Political Parties, Reform and Reaction in South Africa," in D. J. van Vuuren et al., eds., South Africa: The Challenge of Reform (Pinetown, South Africa: Burgess, 1989), pp. 150–52.
of radical anti-government activity. Many Coloureds have joined the UDF, and the community as a whole is somewhat more anti-government than is the Indian community.
At the same time, there are crosscurrents, as might well be expected, given the strongly negative social distance evaluations of Coloureds by African respondents.[130] Asked in the 1985 Durban survey for their leadership choice, 31 percent, a plurality, still chose Botha, and 25 percent chose Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, then PFP leader of the parliamentary opposition. Mandela received only 11 percent support, Tutu 5 percent, and Boesak 3 percent.[131] Likewise, Coloureds in Natal did not opt for a radical line. While half of Natal's Africans professed to support the UDF, only 7 percent of the Coloureds did. A clear majority of Coloured respondents (56 percent) said they supported no organization.[132] In sample surveys, Coloureds show significantly higher levels of life satisfaction than Africans do—by levels of nearly 2 to 1.[133] The Coloured levels (81 percent) are close to those reported by both Indians and Whites (89 percent). The judgment seems inescapable that the unrest of the mid-1980s produced, in Fatima Meer's words, "a radicalization of African political sentiment, and a marked shift towards conservatism on the part of Coloured and particularly Indian people."[134] In recent years, more than a few Coloureds have emigrated to Canada and Australia.
Among students, moreover, Coloured responses to survey options
[130] Even in Brian du Toit's study "Ethnicity, Neighborliness, and Friendship among Urban Africans in South Africa," p. 153, conducted in Durban, which has few Coloureds, Coloureds were evaluated as the third most distant group from Zulu respondents, after Indians and Whites, in that order. In the HSRC study, Coloureds were seen as more distant than Afrikaners by Sotho respondents and just about as distant as Afrikaners by Zulu respondents. HSRC Investigation into Intergroup Relations, The South African Society , p. 82.
[131] Meer and Reynolds, "Sample Survey of Perceptions of the Durban Unrest," p. 262.
[132] Ibid., p. 264.
[133] V. Moller et al., "Quality of Life and Race in South Africa: A Preliminary Analysis" (Centre for Applied Social Sciences, University of Natal, Durban, September 1985; unpublished paper), pp. 8, 22.
[134] Meer and Reynolds, "Sample Survey of Perceptions of the Durban Unrest," p. 261. For general surveys of the two groups, see Kogila A. Moodley, "Structured Inequality and Minority Anxiety: Responses of Middle Groups in South Africa," in Price and Rosberg, eds., The Apartheid Regime , pp. 217–35; Anil Sookdeo, "The Transformation of Ethnic Identities: The Case of 'Coloured' and Indian [South] Africans," Journal of Ethnic Studies 15, no. 4 (Winter 1988): 69–83; Karl P. Magyar, "The Permanent Minority: Politicization of South Africa's Indian Community" (paper presented at the Congress of the Political Science Association of South Africa, September 20, 1985). For an argument that Indians were united and mobilized into the struggle against apartheid, see Pushpa Hargovan, "Apartheid and the Indian Community in South Africa: Isolation or Cooperation," Journal of Asian and African Affairs 1, no. 2 (December 1989): 155–73.
are notably different from those of African students. As we shall see in Chapter 3, African university students in the Western Cape overwhelmingly chose a "hard nationalist" option among possible future arrangements, and only 5.8 percent chose "a society in which group identity has ceased to be crucial in determining who governs."[135] Among Coloured students in the Western Cape, this liberal option was chosen by literally ten times as many respondents: 59 percent.[136]