Mind Your Colour
(1981)–Vernon February–The 'Coloured' Stereotype in South African Literature
[pagina 179]
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Appendix I
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1 | The APO was set out ‘to create a unity among us’. |
2 | Education was seen as the key to success: ‘a poor education will always keep us poor’. |
3 | The 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’. |
4 | The 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.’ | |
5 | Class legislation (i.e. descriminatory colour legislation) was opposed: ‘it is unjust, as it is unfair.’ |
6 | The 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.’Ga naar eind3 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.’Ga naar eind4 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.’Ga naar eind5
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’.Ga naar eind6 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’.Ga naar eind7
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.’Ga naar eind8
The efforts of the Smuts regime to establish a Coloured Advisory Council (CAC) which would later become a fully-fledged Coloured Affairs Department (CAD)Ga naar eind9 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).Ga naar eind9 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).Ga naar eind9 At the end of 1943, the Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM) came into being. From now onwards, the TLSA,Ga naar eind9 the Anti-Coloured Affairs Department (Anti-CAD)Ga naar eind9 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:Ga naar eind10
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.
- eind1
- R. van der Ross, The Founding of the African Peoples Organization in Cape Town in 1903 and the Role of Dr Abdurahman (California, 1975), 17.
- eind2
- Ibid., 12.
- eind6
- The Educational Journal (Cape Town), 1961, 32, 7:6.
- eind7
- The Educational Journal (Cape Town), 1961, 32, 8:18.
- eind8
- Ibid., 20.
- eind9
- For persons not familiar with South African by-ways, the numerous abbreviations of various political organizations can be very confusing indeed. Yet, a knowledge of these organizations is imperative if one is to have any pretension of an understanding of aspects of South African life. These abbreviations have taken on such a life of their own that no South African would use the full title. In order to initiate the non-South African into these maze of organizations, a list is given below in which the organization's full name is first noted down, and then the generally accepted abbreviation.
Organization Abbreviation Founded African Peoples Organization (initially: African Political Organization) APO 1902-3 Teachers League of South Africa (official magazine: Educational Journal) TLSA 1913 African National Congress (re-named thus in 1923) (first called South African Native Congress) ANC 1912 All African Convention AAC 1935 New Era Fellowship NEF 1937 Coloured Advisory Council CAC 1943 Coloured Affairs Department CAD ditto Anti-Coloured Affairs Department Anti-CAD ditto Non-European Unity Movement (the basis of the NEUM was the ten point programme) magazine: The Torch NEUM 1944 Coloured Peoples National Union CPNU 1944 South African Coloured Peoples Organization SACPO 1950 Coloured Representative Council (succeeded the Council for Coloured Affairs created in 1959) CRC 1969 Christelike Nasionale Onderwys: a policy of education propounded by Afrikaner nationalists. In English it was known as Christian National Education CNO (Afrikaans) CNE (English) policy enunciated at congress in Bloemfontein in 1948.
- eind9
- For persons not familiar with South African by-ways, the numerous abbreviations of various political organizations can be very confusing indeed. Yet, a knowledge of these organizations is imperative if one is to have any pretension of an understanding of aspects of South African life. These abbreviations have taken on such a life of their own that no South African would use the full title. In order to initiate the non-South African into these maze of organizations, a list is given below in which the organization's full name is first noted down, and then the generally accepted abbreviation.
Organization Abbreviation Founded African Peoples Organization (initially: African Political Organization) APO 1902-3 Teachers League of South Africa (official magazine: Educational Journal) TLSA 1913 African National Congress (re-named thus in 1923) (first called South African Native Congress) ANC 1912 All African Convention AAC 1935 New Era Fellowship NEF 1937 Coloured Advisory Council CAC 1943 Coloured Affairs Department CAD ditto Anti-Coloured Affairs Department Anti-CAD ditto Non-European Unity Movement (the basis of the NEUM was the ten point programme) magazine: The Torch NEUM 1944 Coloured Peoples National Union CPNU 1944 South African Coloured Peoples Organization SACPO 1950 Coloured Representative Council (succeeded the Council for Coloured Affairs created in 1959) CRC 1969 Christelike Nasionale Onderwys: a policy of education propounded by Afrikaner nationalists. In English it was known as Christian National Education CNO (Afrikaans) CNE (English) policy enunciated at congress in Bloemfontein in 1948.
- eind9
- For persons not familiar with South African by-ways, the numerous abbreviations of various political organizations can be very confusing indeed. Yet, a knowledge of these organizations is imperative if one is to have any pretension of an understanding of aspects of South African life. These abbreviations have taken on such a life of their own that no South African would use the full title. In order to initiate the non-South African into these maze of organizations, a list is given below in which the organization's full name is first noted down, and then the generally accepted abbreviation.
Organization Abbreviation Founded African Peoples Organization (initially: African Political Organization) APO 1902-3 Teachers League of South Africa (official magazine: Educational Journal) TLSA 1913 African National Congress (re-named thus in 1923) (first called South African Native Congress) ANC 1912 All African Convention AAC 1935 New Era Fellowship NEF 1937 Coloured Advisory Council CAC 1943 Coloured Affairs Department CAD ditto Anti-Coloured Affairs Department Anti-CAD ditto Non-European Unity Movement (the basis of the NEUM was the ten point programme) magazine: The Torch NEUM 1944 Coloured Peoples National Union CPNU 1944 South African Coloured Peoples Organization SACPO 1950 Coloured Representative Council (succeeded the Council for Coloured Affairs created in 1959) CRC 1969 Christelike Nasionale Onderwys: a policy of education propounded by Afrikaner nationalists. In English it was known as Christian National Education CNO (Afrikaans) CNE (English) policy enunciated at congress in Bloemfontein in 1948.
- eind9
- For persons not familiar with South African by-ways, the numerous abbreviations of various political organizations can be very confusing indeed. Yet, a knowledge of these organizations is imperative if one is to have any pretension of an understanding of aspects of South African life. These abbreviations have taken on such a life of their own that no South African would use the full title. In order to initiate the non-South African into these maze of organizations, a list is given below in which the organization's full name is first noted down, and then the generally accepted abbreviation.
Organization Abbreviation Founded African Peoples Organization (initially: African Political Organization) APO 1902-3 Teachers League of South Africa (official magazine: Educational Journal) TLSA 1913 African National Congress (re-named thus in 1923) (first called South African Native Congress) ANC 1912 All African Convention AAC 1935 New Era Fellowship NEF 1937 Coloured Advisory Council CAC 1943 Coloured Affairs Department CAD ditto Anti-Coloured Affairs Department Anti-CAD ditto Non-European Unity Movement (the basis of the NEUM was the ten point programme) magazine: The Torch NEUM 1944 Coloured Peoples National Union CPNU 1944 South African Coloured Peoples Organization SACPO 1950 Coloured Representative Council (succeeded the Council for Coloured Affairs created in 1959) CRC 1969 Christelike Nasionale Onderwys: a policy of education propounded by Afrikaner nationalists. In English it was known as Christian National Education CNO (Afrikaans) CNE (English) policy enunciated at congress in Bloemfontein in 1948.
- eind9
- For persons not familiar with South African by-ways, the numerous abbreviations of various political organizations can be very confusing indeed. Yet, a knowledge of these organizations is imperative if one is to have any pretension of an understanding of aspects of South African life. These abbreviations have taken on such a life of their own that no South African would use the full title. In order to initiate the non-South African into these maze of organizations, a list is given below in which the organization's full name is first noted down, and then the generally accepted abbreviation.
Organization Abbreviation Founded African Peoples Organization (initially: African Political Organization) APO 1902-3 Teachers League of South Africa (official magazine: Educational Journal) TLSA 1913 African National Congress (re-named thus in 1923) (first called South African Native Congress) ANC 1912 All African Convention AAC 1935 New Era Fellowship NEF 1937 Coloured Advisory Council CAC 1943 Coloured Affairs Department CAD ditto Anti-Coloured Affairs Department Anti-CAD ditto Non-European Unity Movement (the basis of the NEUM was the ten point programme) magazine: The Torch NEUM 1944 Coloured Peoples National Union CPNU 1944 South African Coloured Peoples Organization SACPO 1950 Coloured Representative Council (succeeded the Council for Coloured Affairs created in 1959) CRC 1969 Christelike Nasionale Onderwys: a policy of education propounded by Afrikaner nationalists. In English it was known as Christian National Education CNO (Afrikaans) CNE (English) policy enunciated at congress in Bloemfontein in 1948.
- eind10
- The Educational Journal (Cape Town), 1958, 30, 2:13.