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Mind Your Colour (1981)

Mind Your Colour

(1981)–Vernon February–rechtenstatus Auteursrechtelijk beschermd

The 'Coloured' Stereotype in South African Literature


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Appendix I
Dr Abdurahman - pioneer

The most formidable figure in ‘coloured’ politics was undoubtedly Dr Abdurahman. He was born in the rural village of Wellington in the Cape in 1872. He studied at the Old South African College (the forerunner to the present-day University of Cape Town) and then proceeded to study medicine at Glasgow. Dr van der Ross, commenting on Abdurahman, says: ‘Although his grandparents were slaves, they were not ordinary slaves; they were said to be “worthy of respect”.’1

The young and brilliant Abdurahman returned to Cape Town as only the second man of colour to practise medicine in the Cape (van der Ross points out that the first one came from the West Indies). In 1904 he became the first ‘coloured’ to be elected to the Cape Town City Council and in 1919 he won a seat on the Cape Provincial Council.

Abdurahman became associated with the African People's Organization in 1905, a relationship which was to last for about forty years. This organization, first called the African Political Organization, was started in 1902-3 to help the ‘coloureds’ in the Northern Provinces who had no civic rights.

The inaugural meeting of this organization, which came to be referred to, generally, as the APO, was held in March 1903. A scrutiny of the main aims as propounded at this meeting is very illuminating:2

1The APO was set out ‘to create a unity among us’.
2Education was seen as the key to success: ‘a poor education will always keep us poor’.
3The APO did not seek social integration with white people: ‘we don't want to get into company where we have no business, we do not crave social intercourse’.
4The APO would not fight other political organizations:

‘since we have been so often sold and re-sold, we cannot afford to support any particular party.’
5Class legislation (i.e. descriminatory colour legislation) was opposed: ‘it is unjust, as it is unfair.’
6The people were ever to be elevated, and so: ‘Let us fight the drink traffic, it has wrought havoc amongst our people.’

Once more van der Ross comments as follows: ‘To a great extent the political history of the Coloured people, of the APO and of Dr Abdurahman, to the time of his death, were inextricably interwoven, although the influence of the APO diminished after the mid-1930s.’3 Abdurahman was president of the APO from 1905 until his death in 1940. The activities of Abdurahman and his APO to have a race-free South African constitution in 1910, are of great historical importance.

There were three important non-white conferences held to discuss the Draft Constitution of South Africa. First, there was the South African Native Convention held at Bloemfontein between 24 and 26 March, 1909 under the presidency of Rubusana. The APO held its annual conference in April 1909. The third conference was held under the presidency of John Tengu Jabavu. On 5 June 1909, the APO took the following resolutions, that in order for ‘Union to be enduring [it] should be founded upon the eternal rule of order and justice’. It went on to say that, ‘conference has read with inexpressible disappointment the introduction of a colour line in the Draft S.A. Act’ and ‘That the franchise of the Coloured races of the Cape Colony should be permanently protected.’ It continued ‘That provision be made for the extension of the franchise to all qualified coloured persons in the contemplated Union, and that the Native territories should not be transferred to the Union except upon conditions satisfactory to the Chiefs and Councillors.’ Commenting on the stipulation that only whites were eligible to become members of Parliament the APO called it ‘the foulest work that ever South African Statesmen attached their names to....It is an injustice and cannot be tolerated by any self-respecting man....We feel sure that the Coloured people and natives will never cease to agitate until injury is repaired and peace and mutual goodwill once more restored.’4 Even at this stage, the main aim was still to strive for peace and goodwill. The early writings of ‘coloured’ leaders are interesting as an index of the type of attitudes held by this group.

On the first Union Day celebrations, Dr Abdurahman made a statement to the ‘Coloured People of South Africa’ in which he exhorted ‘every individual to prove by his life and conduct that he values his political rights and privileges, and both knows how to and actually does, discharge his duties faithfully and fearlessly.’5

Abdurahman was a child of his times and still believed that he could persuade the whites to undergo a change of heart. Blacks also believed in consultation. In the 1930s it led to the ‘toy telephone’ stage - that is, blacks were allowed to phone white government institutions, but the final outcome was still detrimental to their interests. Even the, now militant, TLSA, gestated as it was by the APO, was more renowned for the fact that ‘members of rival church den ominations could actually drink tea and dance together’.6 The major concern was with the education of the ‘Bruin Africander’, a term actually used during the years 1915-16. Largely, it was a teachers' body of diverse social plumage, and with very little, if any, political orientation. This change would only come about in 1943.

Nascent protest movements

The first Non-European conference held at Kimberley during June 1927 which was attended by the APO, the Cape Native Voters Association, the ANC and the South African Indian Conference, produced no great revolutionary decisions. The year 1935 saw the birth of the All African Convention (AAC). From the point of view of political developments in the Cape, the birth of the AAC was important. The journal of the TLSA comments that it was ‘born out of a country-wide reaction against the Hertzog trinity, it was brought into the world by various left-overs from the political period’.7

Following the founding of the AAC, came the emergence of the New Era Fellowship (NEF) which according to the TLSA journal, ‘initially started as a sorting house of ideas and later developed into a political force which played a major part in changing the whole basis and outlook of the liberatory movement. It was out of the NEF, for example, that there came the ideas and many of the people, who beginning in 1940, challenged the old regime in the TLSA.’8

The efforts of the Smuts regime to establish a Coloured Advisory Council (CAC) which would later become a fully-fledged Coloured Affairs Department (CAD)9 led to one of the most significant events in ‘coloured’ politics. As a direct consequence, the TLSA advocated a boycott of the institution. Totally in conformity with the pattern of ambiguity and near-kinship, some individuals (e.g. Golding) decided to co-operate with the Government. This led to the formation of another ‘coloured’ teachers' body, the Teachers Educational and Professional Association (TEPA).9 Members of this organization came to be branded as quislings, traitors and collaborators. In Government eyes however, they found solace and official recognition. Some of these people even

started a political wing known as the Coloured Peoples National Union (CPNU).9 At the end of 1943, the Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM) came into being. From now onwards, the TLSA,9 the Anti-Coloured Affairs Department (Anti-CAD)9 and the Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM), were to shape ‘coloured’ intellectual and political life in the Cape to a very considerable extent. Whatever the faults of the Movement (as these three bodies were sometimes collectively called), there are few ‘coloureds’ who have not, at one stage or another, undergone its influence.

The once meek and mild Teachers League now became a militant and politically conscious organization, fighting for the education of the children, always prepared to expose the ‘Herrenvolk’ ideology.

Not surprisingly, it was an Afrikaner Member of Parliament who correctly assessed the danger inherent in the League and the Movement. For, if there is anything the Afrikaner understands, it is the nature of power and the nature of the threat to power. Having fought the English for so long, the Afrikaner was not prepared to make a similar mistake with the blacks. Thus Cas Greyling, a prominent nationalist in Parliament, said as follows:10

After the establishment of the Coloured Advisory Council in 1943, the then T.L.S.A. of South Africa held their annual conference at Kimberley where the establishment of the so-called CAC was discussed. There it came to a split because a certain extremist section or wing would not reconcile themselves with a Coloured Advisory Council while the more moderate group did. There was thus an extremist or leftist group and a more moderate group. From this division resulted the Teachers Educational and Professional Association, the so-called TEPA which under the leadership of Golding represents the moderate wing. They also established a political front, the Coloured People's National Union....By way of opposition against the establishment of the Coloured Council, one had the development of the Anti-Cads. The Coloured Council was consistently opposed by the Anti-Cads.... These two groups, the Anti-Cads and the TLSA are the people who through the years have been closely allied with the Non-European Unity Movement, and they have drawn their sword against all moderates amongst the Coloureds in this country...they are the ones who in their ten-point programme fight segregation and apartheid measures tooth and nail. They are the ones who preach absolute equality and who militate against apartheid in Schools.

That the impact of the Movement has not been greater is largely due to a fundamental political miscalculation during Sharpeville and before, and also the tenacious clinging to the principle of the boycott. Moreover, the Movement has never broadened its scope to become

a mass organization, objections which have been raised as early as 1944 by Hoseah Jaffe in the Worker's Voice.


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