WEBVTT - Anarchism Is South Africa ft. Andrew 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:04.800 All the media. 0:00:04.960 --> 0:00:08.119 Welcome to grappen Here. I'm Andrew SI to a future 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:12.399 channel Andreism. I'm joined by Mia Wong. 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:13.880 Did not miss your que this time. 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:15.760 This will not make any sense to you unless you've 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:17.919 heard the previous episode in which I missed by you. 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:29.200 But hello, indeed, indeed welcome, did missic you. So recently 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:33.839 I read Born a Crime by Trevoroah. It was his 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:38.159 memoir of his childhood in South Africa and politics society. 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:41.520 Is a decent comedian and had me laughing out loud 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:46.360 and thinking a lot as well, and it really reignited 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:51.080 my long pass and interest in South African history because 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:54.520 he's given a lot of context when sharing his stories. 0:00:56.080 --> 0:00:59.040 So I decided to look into the history of anarchism 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:02.440 in So Africa and that's what we will be exploring today. 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:05.760 Much of the information I gathered is thanks to the 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:10.160 scholarship of Lucian van der Walt, a South African anarchist 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:15.000 and professor of sociology. Particularly, I'll be looking at the 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:20.679 work on anarchism and Cynicalism Southern Africa from the International 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:25.160 Encyclopedia Revolution and Protest and Anarchism and cynical in the 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:28.640 Colonial and post colonial world. Without getting into the lengthy 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:31.840 and storied history of the region, I do need to 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:36.120 provide some context, so we'll start in the mid nineteenth century, 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:39.880 where the region that became South Africa was considered marginal 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:42.120 to the world economy. You had the Port of the 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.240 Cape of Good Hope and Port Elizabeth, which handled me 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:48.840 in the agricultural exports. And this was during the second 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:52.600 period of the British Cape Colony's existence, after it had 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:55.200 briefly fallen into the hands of the Batavia and Republic 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:59.520 during the Napoleonic Wars. None of that is particularly necessary 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:02.880 to know for our sake, but you know a little 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:06.640 fun fact at this point, once again under the British, 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:11.320 the land was broadly agrarian, and Britain's farms were worked 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:16.320 by colored and African workers. The neighboring Natal Colony, also 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:20.400 under British rule, had its plantations worked by indentured Indians. 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:24.760 The rest of the interior was under various Africana republics 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:29.480 and African kingdoms. For those not in the know, so 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:35.040 African in this context refers to obviously Africans, Black Africans, 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:39.600 to be specific, Indians referring to the indentured laborers from 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:45.440 the Indian subcontinent, Africanas referring to the Afrikaans or Dutch 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:49.760 speaking white South Africans. And then we have of course 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:55.880 the British, which are you know, white British people, and 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:59.760 the colored as a designation as a group as a 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:03.880 self identified ethnic group referred to the people of mixed 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:08.880 European and African heritage that had begun to develop their 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:12.560 own identity in their own community. Because the settlement of 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:16.560 South Africa had started centuries before, so other than the 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:20.640 agricultural export and ports providing a respite for trade between 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:23.840 the West and the East, the Southern African colonies weren't 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:27.480 particularly high up on anyone's list of priorities. But then 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:30.640 the economic landscape of the region transformed with the discovery 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:34.440 of diamonds in Kimberlee in eighteen sixty seven and gold 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:37.840 in Woodwater surround in eighteen eighty six. To make a 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:41.280 very long story short, this led to the rapid centralization 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:45.000 of mining activities and the growth of towns like Johannesburg, 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:48.560 one of the most well known towns in South Africa. 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:53.600 Imperial interests intensified, resultant in the British Wars and Africans 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:56.960 and Africanas and the establishment of the Union of South 0:03:57.000 --> 0:04:01.640 Africa in nineteen ten an extremely diverse and polygoth society 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:06.480 under British rule. By nineteen thirteen, almost half of the 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:09.640 world's gold output came from with waters Round Aeriel and 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:13.000 with waters Rand Minds employed one hundred and ninety five 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:17.440 thousand Africans and twenty two thousand white workers. The working 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:24.000 class clearly faced many racial and ethnic divisions. It was 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:28.560 primarily composed of various Africans, which had their own divisions 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:31.640 between them, and there were also divisions between the largely 0:04:31.720 --> 0:04:35.960 skilled white immigrants from Europe and the largely unskilled local 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:40.880 white africaners. The marginalized African and colored middle classes that 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:43.919 began to form from the few free laborers involved in 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:48.000 various grown industries would come to lead early nationalist movements 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:54.000 while grappling with segregation, discrimination, and linguistic challenges. As Van 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:56.440 der Wald said and a Coote, they lived in a 0:04:56.480 --> 0:04:59.520 situation where a cheap African labor formed the bedrock of 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:02.359 the mine as well as state industry and the growing 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:06.080 commercial farming and manufacturing sectors, and where the cheapness of 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:09.400 African labor was primarily a function of the black's historic 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:13.320 incorporation into the country as a subject to people. In 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:17.800 this sense, local capitalist relations of exploitation were constructed upon 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:21.400 colonial relations of domination. Fast forward to the eve of 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:24.839 apartheid in nineteen forty eight, when Africana nationalists took power 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:27.640 and extended the segregation policies in the first four decades 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:30.880 of the Union even further, you get two responses to 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:34.000 the national question preceding the development of apartheid from the 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:37.039 organized labor crowd at the time. The first response, known 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:40.800 as white laborism, was associated with the mainstream white labor 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:45.320 movement leading back to the nineteenth century. The South African 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:49.240 Labor Party and South African Industrial Federation were key proponents 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:53.080 of white labourism, and both organizations were born from the 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:57.159 exclusiveness of early craft unions that later evolved into more 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:03.479 pronounced racial exclusiveness. This white laborism approach combined social democracy 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:08.640 with segregation, promoting job reservation and preferential employment for whites, 0:06:09.160 --> 0:06:15.960 urban segregation and Asian repatriation white power for white workers. Basically, 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:20.120 the other races can figure out their own deal. Of course, 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:23.800 on the reservations that we put them in. So it's 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:27.760 no surprise that the apartheid government in part mainstreamed this 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:31.480 white laborism movement. But the second response to the national 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:34.560 question was linked to the Communist Party of South Africa 0:06:34.680 --> 0:06:38.279 the CPSA from nineteen twenty eight, when it adopted the 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:43.040 Native Republic thesis under pressure from the Communist International. This 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:46.760 approach advocate of the establishment of an independent South African 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:50.640 Native Republic as a precursor to the Workers and Peasants Republic, 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:54.800 separating national liberation specifically in the form of nationalism and 0:06:54.839 --> 0:07:01.479 then socialism into distinct stages. The CPSA initially considered leading 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:04.800 both of these stages, but later abandoned this idea and 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:07.840 opted for a united front with the African National Congress, 0:07:08.200 --> 0:07:11.960 even for a unitary, democratic and capitalist state with land 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:17.480 reform and partial nationalization. But there's a hidden history that 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:22.080 goes unnoticed prior to the rise of apartheid and the CPSA. 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:27.640 All the way back in the eighteen eighties, Henry Glass 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:30.920 played a pivotal role in establishing the local anarchist tradition 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:35.240 in South Africa. He was an Englishman born in India 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:39.080 with a background in radical London circles. He moved to 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:42.080 Port Elizabeth in the eighteen eighties and engaged in various jobs, 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:47.280 including working on the Witwatersrand mines among African people. He 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:51.040 contributed to the Cape Labor Press, translated key works by 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:56.160 Kropotkin into English, and distributed anarchist materials through various organizations. 0:07:57.200 --> 0:07:59.920 Glass seems to have taken a good look at Cloud 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:04.760 saw how Africans were treated, and didn't shy away from 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:09.440 calling it out now self is writing did idealize pre 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:12.720 capitalist cultures, for example, pointing out in a letter to 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:16.080 Kropotkin that you can still find amongst them the principle 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:20.120 of communism, but his main focus was on pointing fingers 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:23.320 at an order that treated Africans like second class citizens, 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:26.320 and going even further to champion the idea of a 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:30.680 working class movement that bridged racial divides. He understood the 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:33.720 foolishness of white workers to try and pursue their liberation 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:37.640 alone while sidelining their colored comrades, and though Glass spent 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:41.040 his time agitating in Port Elizabeth, this was also a 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:45.600 perspective shared by the Social Democratic Federation or SDF, based 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:48.880 in Cape Town, which despite its name, was all about 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:54.079 pushing anarchism and syndicalism. Actually, the maybe more precise there 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:57.520 was a dominant wing within the SDF of Cape Town 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:02.040 that emphasized anarchism and syndicalism. There will also moderate and 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:05.640 status elements in the SDF as well. Cape Town was 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:09.920 quite different at that time from Port Elizabeth. Port Elizabeth 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:13.200 was mostly African and white, but Cape Town had a 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:17.200 significant colored population, which created a situation where much of 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:20.880 Cape Town's working class was free labor rather than bound 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:25.199 to some form of slavery or dansure. Coloreds were facing 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:29.160 growing official segregation and popular discrimination from the late nineteenth 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:32.600 century onwards, though, so there was a growing discontent as 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:35.880 the working class fractured even further. But there was a 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:38.920 key figure in the Cape Town SDF that pushed anarchism 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:43.040 and cynicalism, and that was Wilfred Harrison, another friend of Kropotkin. 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:46.840 A carpenter, a trade unionist, and an ex soldier, he 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:49.600 was known as a very dynamic speaker and a staunch 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:52.840 anarchist communist who pushed for a future where workers owned 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:57.440 and controlled everything. With Harrison at the Helm, the SDF 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:01.920 set up shop in Adelaide Street, where they were allizing talks, events, 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:06.160 and even standing in elections for propaganda purposes. The sdf's 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:11.640 events attracted thousands, creating truly uniquely integrated public spheres that 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:14.880 would bring colors, whites, and Africans in some of the 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:18.960 same spaces. They were holding speeches in Afrikaans, which was 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:22.640 the most popular language of the colors, and in Eating Closer, 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:28.320 the language of the closer people. They had bookshops, reading rooms, 0:10:28.360 --> 0:10:32.320 refreshment bars, beach trips, choirs, and even a few socialist 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:37.760 christ Nets. At the various talks, they welcomed controversial figures, 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:42.559 including a young Gandhi. Harrison's wing of the SDF further 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:47.400 sought to remove union colour bars, unionize colors, secure equal pay, 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:51.600 and build unions that would unite all workers, regardless of race. 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:55.880 In the early nineteen hundreds, Socialists with Waters Round launched 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:59.080 the Weekly Voice of Labor, led by Archie Crawford and 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:03.280 Mary Fitzgerald. The People served to connect socialists across cities 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:07.360 from Duban to Kimberley, to Cape Town to Johannesburg. Archie 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:11.240 Crawford was a staunch anti segregationist, pushing back against the 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:14.400 South African Labor Party for its policies and organized in 0:11:14.440 --> 0:11:18.360 the neglected colored workers. In nineteen ten, the SDF hosted 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:21.920 British Synicolas tom Mann, whose tours the region would inspire 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:25.800 the founding of the Socialist Labor Party or SLP. In Johannesburg. 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:29.640 They adopted the ideas of Daniel de Leon, the American 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:32.120 leader of the International Workers of the World, and were 0:11:32.120 --> 0:11:35.360 followed by the Industrial Workers' Union, which linked with the 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:41.679 IWW in Chicago. The IWW's ideas spread to Duban and Pretoria, 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:44.800 but it was Johannesburg where they flexed their muscles with 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:50.360 successful strikes and challenges to labor laws. The IWW's position 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:53.960 carried the same as its forebears, fight the class war 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:56.960 with the aid of all workers, whether efficient or inefficient, 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:02.280 skilled or unskilled, white or black. IWW organizer Jock Campbell 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:05.719 would be the first to specifically make propaganda amongst the 0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:19.839 African workers in which waters Rand. But don't get me wrong, 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:24.679 these efforts do not mean that they necessarily succeeded. The 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:28.559 IWW and SLP's struggle to recruit to cross racial lines 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:33.320 stems not primarily from prejudice, but from their overall weakness 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:36.839 as union organizers outside the tram sector where they saw 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:40.640 the most successes, and of course the practical challenges of 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:46.320 organizing the predominantly unfree African workforce Underwitwater's Rand. So they 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:48.960 talked a good talk about reaching across racial lines, but 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:52.640 not a massive success because they didn't have a strategy 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:57.400 in place to actually establish those connections between Africans, colored 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:01.280 and Indian workers in this regard. Actually, the SDF in 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:05.560 Cape Town was a lot more successful. However, something did 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:09.960 happen in witwaters Rand. In May nineteen thirteen, a significant 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:13.920 general strike erupted on the witwaters Rand, initiated by white 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:18.800 miners and quickly spread in across industries. The strike was 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:22.200 marked by riots and gun battles and escalated on what's 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:26.520 called Black Saturday, July fifth, resulting in twenty five deaths 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:30.360 at the hands of the imperial troops. Subsequent strikes by 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:35.400 African miners and Indian passive resistance campaigns further intensified the 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:38.960 social unrest, with the failure of a compromise in the 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:41.839 aftermath of the nineteen thirteen strike led to a second 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:46.440 general strike in January nineteen fourteen. The State responded swiftly, 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:51.280 declaring martial law, mobilizing forces and suppress in the unions, 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:56.640 resulting the arrest and deportation of key activists, including Archie Crawford. 0:13:57.400 --> 0:13:59.960 Then World War One further disrupted things, with the U 0:13:59.960 --> 0:14:04.040 s Country joining the British side. While some organizations suspended 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:08.480 activities to support the war efforts, hardline African and nationalists 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:12.200 launched an armed rebellion, leading to split within the SDF 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:16.280 and the South African Labor Party. Although anarchism and syndicalism 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:20.040 played a role in these turbulent events, the actual syndicalist 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:23.280 movement on the Witwater Strand was weak and divided. By 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:26.920 nineteen thirteen, despite attempts to forge unity through the United 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:30.360 Socialist Party, the USP it fell apart due to existing 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:34.800 divisions and ideological differences among the constituent groups. While organized 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:39.920 syndicalism struggled to lead the strikes, syndicalist ideas and sloguans 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:44.600 gained considerable traction in labor circles. The strikes and war 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:50.320 issues reinvigorated existing anarchists and syndicalists, radicalized new activists, and 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:55.080 sparked widespread interest in radical ideas, which would lead to 0:14:55.120 --> 0:15:00.000 a new development. In September nineteen fifteen, the Industrial Socialists 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:05.760 League the ISL emerged as a prominent syndicalist formation. Comprising 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:08.800 of the syndicalist veterans and anti war South African Labor 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:13.600 Party activists, the ISL quickly became the largest left political 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:17.640 group before the Communist Party of South Africa. The ISL 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:22.080 rooted in theww tradition, advocated for the organization of workers 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:26.640 on industrial alliance irrespective of race, and envisioned an integrated 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:31.000 revolutionary one big union for national liberation and class struggle. 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:36.120 The ISL criticized whitecraft unions for the divisive practices and 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:39.560 advocated fundictrial unions to confront the challenges posed by jant 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:44.360 corporations and trusts. Racial prejudice, according to the ISL, served 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:48.320 the ruling class's interests insuring a study supply of cheap, 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:52.040 unorganized African labor at the same time that the ISL 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:57.040 was actively opposing discriminatory laws. The ISSL also doubted the 0:15:57.080 --> 0:16:03.240 efficacy of African nationalist programs in genuinely emancipating the black masses. 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:08.160 It contended that national oppression was rooted in capitalism, making 0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:13.440 national liberation unlikely under the prevalent system. The ISL aimed 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:16.880 to reform white unions, but while leading efforts to organize 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:20.160 people of color, they faced challenges, of course, in the 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:24.400 form of opposition from white workers, electoral defeats, and hostility 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:28.040 from established unions. They were evicted from Trades Hall in 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:34.400 nineteen seventeen for resistant discriminatory policies, but continued the activities 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:38.680 cultivating links with people of color, particularly through its passionately 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:43.880 anti Zionist Yiddish speaking branch. The ISL played a pivotal 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:47.280 role in establishing unions among people of color, launching the 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:50.800 Indian Workers Industrial Union in Durban in nineteen seventeen, and 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:54.920 later through night schools for Africans initiating the Industrial Workers 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:57.280 of Africa in the same year, both of which would 0:16:57.280 --> 0:17:01.160 be led by their own constituents. By nineteen eighteen, there 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:04.840 would be another general strike, this time primarily by Africans. 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:09.119 Earlier that year, one hundred and fifty two African municipal 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:13.080 workers were sentenced to hard labor for striking, leading to 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:16.680 protests organized by the Industrial Workers of Africa, the International 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:21.359 Socialist League and the South African Native National Congress and 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:25.480 the South Africa Native National Congress. The SANNC, which was 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:29.240 the precursor to the currently ruled in African National Congress 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:34.080 the ANC. The Joint Action Committee proposed a general strike 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:36.840 on the Witwatersrand for the release of the sentenced workers 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:40.639 and better pay for African workers. Although the strike was 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:45.920 canceled last minute, several thousand African miners participated anyway, resulting 0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:50.600 in arrests for incitement to public violence. The rested individuals 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:54.000 included ISL members and a member of both the Industrial 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:58.280 Workers of Africa and the SANNC. A year later, in 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:01.480 March nineteen nineteen, ISL members played a role in their 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:05.679 civil disobedience campaign against past lords, which required non whites 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:09.320 in South Africa to carry documents authorizing their presence in 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:14.639 restricted white areas. That resistance campaign led to nearly seven 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:20.920 hundred arrests. That same year, in Kimberley, the ISSL established 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:24.520 syndicalist unions among colored workers, such as the Clothing Workers 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:28.720 Industrial Union and the host Drivers Union. These unions achieved 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:34.959 significant successes, including wage increases in Cape Town. ISL members 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:38.439 City Way and CRY aimed to organize the Industrial Workers 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:41.879 of Africa on the docks. They collaborated with the Industrial 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:46.560 Socialist League, the ind sl a syndicalist breakaway from the SDF, 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:49.159 and played a role in the major strike on the 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:54.000 docks in December nineteen nineteen. Now, the strike ultimately disintegrated, 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:59.160 but it still marked a significant event. All in all, 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:03.240 the ISL, heavily influenced by syndicalism, would play a major 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:07.320 role in the strikes of the late nineteen tenths. The 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:11.000 ISL's influence extended to the formation of the Communist Party 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:14.760 of South Africa CPS alongside the SDF and the INDs 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:17.520 CEL and a few other groups in the nineteen twenties. 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:21.800 That party would go underground after the Anti Communists Act 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:25.000 of the fifties and re emerge as the South African 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:30.000 Communist Party the SAACP. For most of its history, it 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:36.160 has been explicitly Marxist Leninist, heavily influenced by the Bolsheviks. However, 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:40.159 when it first started, syndicalist concepts still lingered within the 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:44.840 party for many years before was eventually excised. The internationalist 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:47.360 and multi racial vision of the syndicalist movement was later 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:50.040 taken over by the two stage strategy of the cpsa 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:54.760 slash SACP, which sought to establish an independent, democratic, capitalist 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:59.000 republic as a precursor to a socialist order. This, of course, 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:02.920 diverges from the earth anarchist and syndicalist strategy, which viewed 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:07.399 the anti colonial independence and class struggles as interconnected and 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:11.800 didn't see national liberation as solely the purview of nationalism, 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:15.480 a view which to me is more sophisticated and revolutionary 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:18.359 than this one track status view that Marxist tend to 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:23.600 adopt contrary to the organizing efforts of actual working class people. Interestingly, 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:27.679 Van der Walt argues that while CPSA undeniably contributed to 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:31.240 working class struggles since the nineteen forties, a critical look 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:35.119 reveals that they made consistent cricketures of the pre CPSA left. 0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:38.720 They sort of established themselves as the true vanguard in 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:41.760 the fight for South Africa's liberation. So they portrayed the 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:46.120 pre CPSA left in two main currents. The Proto Bolsheviks 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:50.960 considered true socialists and everyone else. The pre CPSA left 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:54.159 was deemed a failure, with the Proto Bolsheviks credited for 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:58.560 pioneering socialist work among black workers. According to their narrative, 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:02.760 it was only in the nineteen twenties the cpsa's adoption 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:06.000 of the native republic thesis and Marxistleninist ideas that the 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:11.520 national question was adequately addressed. Anarchism and syndicalism are portrayed 0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:16.200 as marginal and bothersome predominantly white movements that at best 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:20.640 underestimated the significance of national oppression or at worst endorsed 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:25.720 white supremacy and segregation. This interpretation, of course, positions a 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:30.200 CPSA slash SACP as the sole bearers of revolutionary socialist 0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:34.119 solution to the national question, while ironically erasing the history 0:21:34.160 --> 0:21:39.159 of early African socialist and syndicalist radicalism. So wrapping up 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:42.280 a bit here, we delved into the intricate history of 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:46.560 anarchism and syndicalism in South Africa, uncovering a movement that 0:21:46.600 --> 0:21:49.440 played a significant role in Southern Africa from the eighteen 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:53.119 eighties to the nineteen twenties and consistently grappled with the 0:21:53.160 --> 0:21:57.240 complexities of the national question. We've seen a multi racial 0:21:57.359 --> 0:22:01.080 and internationalist movement marked by a step fast opposition to 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:05.480 racial discrimination and a commitment to interracial labor organization and 0:22:05.560 --> 0:22:08.600 the unity of the working class. They had a vision 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:12.359 of a society rooted in class solidarity of an industrial 0:22:12.400 --> 0:22:16.280 republic distinct from the conventional nation state and in lockstep 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:21.080 with an international industrial republic. Now, despite the decline of 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:24.439 anarchism and cynicalism in the years following the founding of 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:29.320 the CPSA slash SACP anarchism is still alive today in 0:22:29.359 --> 0:22:35.040 South Africa. The Zaba Laza Anarchist Communist Front or ZACF 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:40.080 is a specific anarchist political organization based in Johannesburg, South 0:22:40.080 --> 0:22:43.320 Africa and founded on May Day in two thousand and three. 0:22:44.280 --> 0:22:48.840 The organization operates on an individual membership basis by invitation only, 0:22:49.400 --> 0:22:54.959 emphasising theoretical and strategic unity among members. The Zaba Lazas 0:22:55.119 --> 0:22:59.359 align with the anarchist, communist, platformist and a specifistic traditions 0:22:59.359 --> 0:23:03.240 within anarchism, subscribe to the idea of an active minority 0:23:03.320 --> 0:23:09.040 pushing anarchist ideas within larger movements. In fact, unlike the anarchisynicalists, 0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:13.320 the Zablazas don't aim to build mass anarchist movements, but 0:23:13.440 --> 0:23:18.000 rather to participate in existing social movements, spreading anarchist principles 0:23:18.000 --> 0:23:25.840 within heterogeneous organizations. Zablaza advocates for direct democracy mutual aid, horizontalism, 0:23:26.240 --> 0:23:31.560 class combativeness, direct action, and class independence. It emerged during 0:23:31.600 --> 0:23:34.960 a time of political closure within trade unions which were 0:23:35.000 --> 0:23:39.400 controlled by the African National Congress government. It oriented itself 0:23:39.640 --> 0:23:43.840 towards emergent social movements such as the Anti Privatization Forum 0:23:44.119 --> 0:23:47.960 and the Landless People's Movement, aim into advance anarchist principles 0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:54.080 within these movements. Sablas's work includes popular political education, combatant 0:23:54.080 --> 0:23:58.000 reformists and authoritarian tendencies, and advocating for the independence of 0:23:58.080 --> 0:24:03.360 social movements from political parties and electoral politics. So that's 0:24:03.359 --> 0:24:08.280 the story the history of anarchism and cynicalism and South Africa. 0:24:09.040 --> 0:24:12.399 Obviously this is a summary, but it goes to show 0:24:12.640 --> 0:24:17.159 the influence that these movements have had in shaping the 0:24:17.280 --> 0:24:21.280 history of that often forgotten region of the world. Thanks 0:24:21.280 --> 0:24:25.200 for joining me once again or power to all the people. 0:24:26.040 --> 0:24:34.000 Thanks. It could Happen here as a production of cool 0:24:34.080 --> 0:24:37.000 Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit 0:24:37.000 --> 0:24:39.600 our website cool Zonemedia dot com or check us out 0:24:39.640 --> 0:24:42.600 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen 0:24:42.600 --> 0:24:45.360 to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here. 0:24:45.440 --> 0:24:49.359 Updated monthly at cool zonemedia dot com. Slash Sources thanks 0:24:49.359 --> 0:24:49.920 for listening.