In Our Own Skins: A Political History of the Coloured People

By Richard van der Ross

The Coloured community of South Africa came into being after 1652, when the Dutch and, later, the British seeped into southern Africa's arid west, forming an uneasy alliance with the indigenous people. In the first unions between settlers and indigenous peoples, the Coloured people of the Cape flicker to life. Fast-forward to 1910, the Union of South Africa, which sees the Coloured people lose what little parliamentary representation they had under the British.In Our Own Skins is the extraordinary record of the Coloured community and its 84-year battle to regain the franchise, told through the eyes of uncompromising insider Richard van der Ross. From the Stone meetings, conducted from a boulder on a windswept District Six hillside, to a petition carried, torch-like, to faraway London in 1909, it maps a trajectory of loss - and of restoration. Its rich cast - among others, the Glasgow-educated Dr Abdullah Abdurahman, his fiery daughter Cissie Gool, the Ghanaian FZS Peregrino, Jimmy and Alex la Guma and Labour Party stalwart Allan Hendrickse - plays a leading role in pulling the Coloured people through the post-colonial morass that is South Africa up to 1994 and beyond and proudly placing them, fully represented, in the Cabinet of Nelson Mandela.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jonathan Ball
• Release date: Mar 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781868426683

Book preview

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THE CAPE, 1652: EUROPE AND AFRICA COLLIDE.

As the Dutch and, later, the British seep into southern Africa’s arid west, they form an uneasy alliance with the indigenous people. In the first unions between settlers and indigenous peoples, the Coloured people of the Cape flicker to life. Fast-forward to 1910, the Union of South Africa, which sees the Coloured people lose what little parliamentary representation they had under the British.

In Our Own Skins is the extraordinary record of the Coloured community and its 84-year battle to regain the franchise, told through the eyes of uncompromising insider Richard van der Ross.

From the Stone meetings, conducted from a boulder on a windswept District Six hillside, to a petition carried, torch-like, to faraway London in 1909, it maps a trajectory of loss – and of restoration. Its rich cast – among others, the Glasgow-educated Dr Abdullah Abdurahman, his fiery daughter Cissie Gool, the Ghanaian FZS Peregrino, Jimmy and Alex la Guma and Labour Party stalwart Allan Hendrickse – plays a leading role in pulling the Coloured people through the post-colonial morass that is South Africa up to 1994 and beyond and proudly placing them, fully represented in the Cabinet of Nelson Mandela.

In our own skins

A Political History of the Coloured People

RICHARD VAN DER ROSS

JONATHAN BALL PUBLISHERS

JOHANNESBURG & CAPE TOWN

RICHARD VAN DER ROSS graduated from the University of Cape Town in 1952 with a PhD in the Philosophy of Education. He was the first Coloured rector of the University of the Western Cape from 1975 to 1986. After a term as Member of the Western Cape Legislature, he served as South Africa’s Ambassador to Spain and Andorra. His awards include the Freedom of the City of Cape Town. He remains an avid researcher of the Cape Coloured community.

Foreword

To write about the Coloured people and their distinct history is, and has always been, a controversial matter in South Africa, but also in other heterogeneous countries such as the USA.

AM Schlesinger Jr quotes WEB Du Bois, the West African-born scholar and activist, who observed in 1900 that ‘[t]he problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line’. This prediction came into full flower in the global revolt against racism in the 21st century. De Tocqueville, quoted in Volume 1 of Bryce’s epic The American Commonwealth, explained long ago that oppression is ‘[p]atiently endured so long as it seemed beyond redress, a grievance comes to appear intolerable once the possibility of removing it crosses men’s minds, for the mere fact that certain abuses have been remedied draws attention to the others [. . .]’.

There is, indeed, importance in focusing on such moments in the history of South Africa and also in the life and times of the Coloured people, as long as we remain aware – as the author points out – that the Coloured people on their own constitute neither a nation nor a race. They are, however, a group with a distinct socioeconomic experience and a history of resistance to racism and efforts by colonialists and the post-colonial government to afford them a political status. The resistance to colour oppression also entailed a conscious non-acceptance of self-consciousness, inferiority and being given a separate political status as Coloured people.

Van der Ross is, as the Americans would say, completely comfortable in his own skin. He is, in his general demeanour and social conduct, in many ways a very good example of a non-racialist, yet strongly identifies with the Coloured people – our broader habits, culture, history and world view. His reference to the Coloured people is usually in the first person plural. What is particularly valuable in his historic account is that he has been so central to every episode in the modern travails of the Coloured people. In fact, his role was already widely recognised in the early 1950s when the Congress movement, which consisted of colour-based units, came into action. Of particular interest are the discussions that Van der Ross had – at Nelson Mandela’s request, as representative of the Coloured Convention Planning Committee in 1962 – about the ANC’s planned uprising against apartheid laws and the role Mandela saw for the Coloured people in this uprising.

Of significance is the way in which teachers’ associations became the voice of Coloured political expression and how the internal tensions within the group played out within the Teachers’ League of South Africa. Even after the League split in 1944, race-based government policies were consistently opposed, though in different ways, languages and styles.

In the 1970s, it was – once again – Coloured teachers who, in the Cape Teachers’ Professional Association, became politicised and organised themselves to resist apartheid in general and apartheid education in particular, and continued to play their significant part in the struggle for a diverse yet united democracy.

At the same time, some churches – especially my church, the Dutch Reformed Mission Church under Dr Allan Boesak – became an open and forceful voice against racism and apartheid. These were not the Coloured organisations to continue the struggle that had started long ago and that had encountered fierce suppression at the time.

Historically significant events, such as the Peace of Vereeniging and the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, led to unprecedented political awakening among black people in general. It is to the Coloured people’s credit that the African People’s Organisation (APO) had already been formed in 1904 and supported the formation of the ANC in 1912, and that there was a common cause in the struggle for a democratic South Africa.

My first contact with Van der Ross was when, as a young man of not quite twenty, I observed, with a sense of pride, the fiery young man from the floor of a conference at the Maitland Town Hall, egging teachers on, despite the threats, to organise themselves politically by supporting the 1962 Convention in spite of the determined and kragdadige apartheid government. In subsequent years, I tried to put that feeling of pride into action by doing the same. This culminated in the Cape Teachers’ Professional Association and the Union of Teachers’ Associations defiantly adopting the ANC’s Freedom Charter as their guide to action. These episodes are critical threads in the diverse yet shared tapestry of black people’s struggle to defeat the apartheid hegemony and embark afresh on their national pursuit for a non-racial and democratic South Africa in which colour and differences become subservient to unity and common purpose.

If I felt proud in 1962, I felt proud again in 2014 when I read this engaging and enlightening overview of the difficult times of the Coloured people, the story of a segment of black South Africans but also, in many ways, a story of one remarkable South African – Richard van der Ross.

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DR FRANKLIN SONN

Author’s foreword

When one starts to read a book called, say, How to drive a motorcar, one believes that when one has completed the book one will not only be able to drive a car but will also have some understanding of why one does certain things while doing so – for instance, that one presses the accelerator pedal down with one’s foot to increase the car’s speed. Later, one may understand something about what happens to the fuel as it is changed from a liquid to a gas and, later still, how this gas releases energy, which, in turn, transforms into the energy of motion, which propels the car.

This book is a history. Learning history is, in some ways, different from learning to drive a car. While both deal with ideas, the result of learning to drive is tangible: a vehicle moves from point to point. Learning history, on the other hand, does not have such tangible results – but does, hopefully, result in an improved understanding of the society in which one lives.

This book deals with a very small part of the history of a small society in a relatively small country. However, because of the way in which the world has ‘shrunk’, with improvements in transport and communications that bring people rapidly into contact with others a great distance away, even people in small places can think of themselves as being part of a much bigger world.

And so, when we speak of the history of the Coloured people of South Africa, our minds are not confined to a small spot at the tip of Africa, because we can conceive of thoughts and places across the globe, and who knows where we may travel to meet people. Even if we do not travel physically, books and modern technology make it possible to exchange ideas with people in far-off places and to learn of earlier times.

This book deals with the people of South Africa. It concerns all the people of South Africa, although it deals more specifically with the Coloured people. Like all histories, it tells of the institutions that constitute the societies into which people are organised. The historian Arnold Toynbee says that ‘[w]ithout institutions societies could not exist’. In modern society, some of these institutions are marriage, ownership of property, law, commerce, transport, education, medicine, sport and relaxation; there are many others. People organise their lives within and around these institutions.

A very important institution is government, which is the way in which society regulates how the members of that society relate to one another, particularly regarding authority and how it is determined, distributed and exercised. The study of how individuals and groups relate to one another over a period of time is called history. Toynbee says that ‘the ascertainment and recording of facts is the technique of history, and [. . .] the phenomena in the province of this technique are the social phenomena of civilizations’.

The main purpose of this brief history of the Coloured people is to record how the Coloured people have come into being as a reasonably identifiable entity and group, and how they have organised themselves into a society with undeniable infrastructure and institutions. These institutions (forms of government, schools, churches, sporting and recreational bodies, language and cultural groups, etc.) certainly have connections with similar activities of other social institutions, and it is in the very similarities to these other institutions in the total South African complex that the uniqueness of the Coloured people consists.

The political history of the Coloured people is the story of this ethnic group – originally produced from basic, powerful, natural, human urges, but raised and nurtured in conditions of strong social prejudice and subjected to the push–pull of religious, commercial, and voraciously self-seeking authoritarian groups within which it has sought, and continues to seek, a place in South Africa in which to find that elusive quality of contentment.

It is the story of a small population group, a small society within a society, coming into being, barely noticed – except, perhaps, for its nuisance value and possibly some pricking of the conscience of those in the upper layers of the total society, if they deigned to admit that their social and religious beliefs had faltered. It is the story of this small population group growing and developing to the stage at which it became conscious that it was part of a society and culture in which, to quote Abraham Lincoln, ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people’ should be upheld.

As this group, the Coloured people, moved on through some three and a half centuries, we have endured the problems and the pains of being despised and rejected, sometimes by our own members, and patronised by others who often did not – could not – appreciate our feelings as we listened and smiled, with half-lidded eyes, to their protestations of sincerity. And as we grew to maturity, we reached out to claim and enjoy the benefits of citizenship and labour that were rightly ours – which were taken from us, and which we wanted back.

The steps we took, the setbacks we suffered, the gains we made in the company and with the assistance of others, form the substance of this book. The story is presented with humility but also with pride as one realises the hardships, scorn and insults that littered our path, but also the courage, endurance and, above all, the faith that carried us through.

And now, having secured that full citizenship for which we strove, we face the questions: What will we do with it to justify the rights and freedom we have attained? Will the courage, faith and leadership of the past be matched in the future, for surely the heat of battle is wasted if it was only to defeat the enemies of the past, and neglects to shape the future? This has not been a pretty story, but few political histories are. It tells of animosities, of efforts to achieve, of promises made and broken, and of sincere efforts made to improve the lot of one’s fellows.

But there is also evidence of achievement, hope and inspiration. It has been my privilege to observe some of the efforts of my people in their efforts to achieve a place in the sun in the land of our birth. I have seen the progress that has been made through my vehicle, which is education. As I near the end of observing and participating, I feel that I cannot do better than repeat the words of the poet Arthur Hugh Clough, as Churchill did at a critical time in world history:

And not by eastern windows only,

When daylight comes, comes in the light.

In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,

But westward, look, the land is bright!

Anyone who writes a history invites and expects criticism. For the very positing and for tracing the history of the Coloured people, I make no apology. But the reader may find some sections of the book tiresome. I refer particularly to the many extracts from The APO newspaper, which could be considered peripheral and boring. But I have selected them (and could have selected many more) because they reflect the many facets of the lives of the people in their own words.

Those who criticise the book will probably base their criticism on two grounds. The first could be that the book should not have been written at all, because there are no Coloured people. Well, to that I have no reply. The second could be that the Coloured people are not as they are represented here. Agreed. But statements of this kind only serve to prove that the Coloured people are of all kinds. Individually or in groups, we represent all kinds, because we are of all kinds. But, that being so, there is also a strong provincialism, which we apply when we distinguish between a Capey, a Bolander, a Namaqualander, a Kimberleyite, a Transvaler, a Natalian or someone from the Eastern Cape.

I acknowledge the assistance of those who have contributed to this book – many unknowingly, and others to whose publications I have had access. In particular, I acknowledge the input of Dr Franklin Sonn, who wrote the foreword and made valuable suggestions; the friendship of Professor Brian O’Connell, rector of the University of the Western Cape; the interest of Mr Blum Khan of the Metropolitan Health Group; and, especially, the friendliness of Ms Patricia de Lille, the Mayor of Cape Town, whose warmth and understanding has made this book possible.

As we need to do in writing a history, we have had to mention the names of many people who have gone before. People make history. To those who preceded us, we say thank you. You are gone but not forgotten.

RE VAN DER ROSS

Cape Town

CHAPTER 1

A political history of the Coloured people

Identity: the very mention of this term seems, to me at least, to send people into a flurry of confusion that produces more heat than light. How, then, do we clarify the terms currently used to describe the San (Bushman), Khoi (Hottentot) and Coloured population groups? Confusion exists between these three categories or groups that I consider to be reasonably distinct, but whose distinctness is sometimes not acknowledged. There are certainly mixtures within these groups – as there are mixtures between different ethnic groups (not nationalities) wherever colonisation has taken place – but that does not mean that the original categories (for want of a better word) have disappeared. Exploring this is one of the purposes of this book.

Another purpose is more historical and political. I try to give an accessible account of the Coloured people’s origins and history in a new way, to present the story of how Coloured people have striven to secure the place in South African society that they have earned, for themselves and their children. I tell about our organisations and their formation, the conditions of workers and the emergence of leaders. I make no excuse for relating the names of people, places, actions and even motives that have, for various reasons, not reached more sophisticated publications and readerships: Coloured people’s aspirations will not be fulfilled unless they are recognised as being an integral part of South African society and the body politic.

One of the matters that bear examination is the tendency to call the Coloured people San, Khoi or Khoisan. This, I believe, is wrong. Certainly, there were San and Khoi, as well as some Khoisan, a mixture of San and Khoi. These were names that the Dutch and other Europeans (I use the term to mean ‘people from Europe’) gave to the indigenous people that lived in this southernmost part of Africa when they settled here in the mid-17th century. The San, also called Bosjesmannen (Dutch) or Bushmen, were hunter-gatherers. They lived by hunting buck, and eating shellfish and fish if near the sea, and by gathering berries, roots and fruit. They did not plant or cultivate plants of any kind as they were nomadic, moving from place to place to find food and water. They did not build huts, sheltering from the wind behind bushes and rocks or in caves. Insofar as they wore clothes, these were scanty, consisting mainly of skirts and shawls made of the skins of animals.

They