ANC History: Episode 2: Before Dr Xuma. Prof. Sifiso Ndlovu & Prof. Bongani Ngqulunga

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi sits down with Prof. Bongani Ngqulunga and Prof. Sifiso Ndlovu on the history of the ANC before Dr Xuma.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:01

Um my my sense we we we we are starting with a very rich uh first three decades of the ANC I'm suspecting this is one of if not the foremost generation and coincidentally not coincidentally when they get attacked criticized by the youth leaguers of the forties we almost forget how seriously talented but also that these were not one-dimensional people. They were involved in a formation of something that is not quite a political party.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

That is true.

SPEAKER_04 1:04

Uh this thing they are forming is is not quite uh but they come from they are involved in so many things. They're pr they are newspaper editors, yeah, they are bishops and lawyers, they are lawyers, they are professors, medicaments. They are presiding over surgeries and but they are in the beginning of a modern cosmopolitan society that is forming amongst the Africans in any way. My question is around this idea that this is not a political party.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

No, it was it was not a political party, at least definitely not in the way we understand political parties today today.

SPEAKER_04 1:55

Um I mean they are pretty and certainly not in the way political parties already at the time I understood in the West.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

It's in the West. Definitely, definitely not. Perhaps even not in the manner that the Indian Congress, say for instance in India, I mean, it was. I mean, this was uh in the first instance, what they were establishing was an institution that will represent the interests, the aspiration and aspirations of the African people, the parliament of the African people, because there is, in a sense, a context, and the context, as we discussed before, is the formation of the Union of Salving, right? It's interesting when Seme issues a Karen Call in October 1911. The title of his Karen Call is a native union. Right? That is the title. It says a native union.

SPEAKER_04 3:01

So they were establishing a country.

SPEAKER_02 3:03

They are establishing in many ways a country. And it links, by the way, to the brief conversation that we Which means, prof, at some point you're going to have to write the union of South Africa and the Native Union. And the native and the native union. But but what was the project? What is the political because it was not only a political project in the narrow sense in which we understand politics? These are people that are trying to bring to birth a modernity, right? That is how big it was. An African modernity. That is the reason why they called themselves the new Africans in many ways. That what they were not just trying to take over power, they were trying to introduce something fundamentally different from what had existed in the past in African societies, but also from what European circles had brought to the fore, a new African modernity. But the formation of this parliament of the African people, the South African National Native Congress, that had two houses, the upper house and the lower house, right? It comes in a particular institutional context too, that they are not just only forming this organization, this political institution that will represent the interests and aspirations of the African people. They are also establishing other institutions that will represent these aspirations and the vision of these African people. Some are breaking away from the churches that had incubated and gave birth, in a sense, to their existence. I mean, these missions. I mean, so in the late 1800s, I mean, you have the emergence of what white people called Ethiopianism. I mean, these independent African churches, I mean, they are emerging. There is the Temble Church, I mean, there is the Ethiopian church. Um, they are also linking up with African Americans and bringing and establishing branches of churches that can emulate of the AME, right? They are bringing all of that. So this is uh, that is the reason why, frankly, I, in my humble opinion, this is the greatest generation of Africans who have had. I mean, because think of a Sol Plague. Think of Sol Plague in 1916, he publishes a book, Native Life. I mean, he's writing novels. I mean, he's a renaissance man. And I think really these are renaissance men and women. And I think given the name of the of this podcast, it is essential to say this. There's an African renaissance, in a sense, that they are trying to bring into being. For almost a decade, they have been agitating for the establishment of a college of a university that will serve the natives, these African people. And one of the central figures is John Tiango Jabav, whose son DDT Jabab becomes the first black person to be appointed a professor at a South African university, who then teaches that K. Matthews will become the second black person to be a professor. So there are churches, there are schools, and there is a university. Then there is this parliament that should bring together all Africans from Southern Africa to determine, to discuss and determine the fate of Africans. Now, I do want to say just one little thing before I keep quiet about this, because I think there is something singularly significant about Pixley for all his flaws. I mean, as when he became president general of the ANC from 1940, because I think this modernity, this breadth of vision, in a sense, it is encapsulated in this man, Pixley guy Isara Sem. He is the person who brings together the traditional and the modern and says this new modernity, this modernity that we are bringing into being, it can only exist if you bring a queen, a chief, an educator, a professor, a doctor, a medical doctor, a bishop if you bring them.

SPEAKER_04 7:54

And an industrial worker.

SPEAKER_02 7:56

Yes, an industrial worker.

SPEAKER_04 7:57

Trade unionist.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

By the way, when he becomes president of the ANC in 1930, 1932, he issues a blueprint of the economic empowerment of 1932. Yeah, in 1932, he says we should uh build our own shops. I mean, we should have farms, we should all of those things.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

The youth are crucial in terms of.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

I mean, he says uh we should have Congress clubs, and those Congress clubs should be the center of our social and economic lives. So so so I I really do think that this generation and and the leaders, the first five leaders of the ANC, Dube, Machato, Mahabane, Kumete, Pixlissen, who are people who were there at the founding of the ANC. What the common threat amongst them is this idea, I mean, that they had at the founding of the ANC in 1912. And their arguments is over this vision. I mean, are you working towards the realization of the vision? I mean, when we formed this organization in 1912. So, I mean, it is uh, and and remember that these guys didn't did not have much.

SPEAKER_04 9:22

Let's let's let's push the renaissance a little bit. Uh from St. Louvre before you come in. Remember, I think it's 120 years this year, yeah, since Semers Renaissance of Africa of Africa speech. Yes, uh, which was uh said in 1960. In April 1906, 1906, April the 6th. Yeah, yeah. Are you just take us through that and the Clalion called?

SPEAKER_02 9:57

Yeah, and and those two things are connected. Remember when Semer gave this speech and and how he starts it, I'm an African. Now this is 1906. This is New York City. This is a young African who had gone to the United States to go to high school when he was 14 years old. He goes to this big metropolis, world metropolis. He's telling in front of all of these largely white student body, and he boldly declares. I mean Africa. I mean Africa. He says there is a civilization, an African civilization that I'm proud of, that I'm not afraid to present to the world. So this is the vision. Where does this come from? I mean, Same is also influenced by people like Bladen, right? Same is talking about African personality. He is influenced by African Americans who were given more or less similar ideas, similar species in the 1860s. Henry Sylvester Williams, I mean, who came to Cape Town, he considers Pixel Same his friend. So all of these ideas, South Africa is at the center of all of this. It was worldly. It's worldly.

SPEAKER_04 11:34

When he speaks of the African, he speaks about the African international global state condition.

SPEAKER_02 11:40

I mean, when you when you read that speech, the regeneration of Africa, he is not talking about Africa or Southern Africa. He's starting all the way from Egypt. He goes to the Congo, his vision of this African renaissance is not a geographical vision. He says, as Africans, we've made significant contributions to human civilization, and he backs it up. And so when he comes back, in the practical sense, he wants this vision to be realized. In South Africa, he says, as Africans, we need to come together. Not to gain political power, not just only to gain political power, to give birth to this vision, I mean, of the regeneration of Africa, of a new African modernity. And it's not just only him, all of these members of this great generation. I've mentioned Sol Packy. I've mentioned some of these first lawyers, I mean the medical doctors, all of these, the preachers, the farmers. I mean, they are buying farms. They are buying farms. I mean, part of the reason why we have the native uh natives land at it is partly a response to Africans who are buying farms. White people say we can't deal with these Africans who are putting together money to buy farms. They are entrepreneurs. That is the vision of this regeneration of Africa, of this African renaissance. Its institutional expression is the ANC. Is the ANC.

SPEAKER_04 13:25

And the NC, not as a political party. The ANC as at as a play into a union of the natives.

SPEAKER_02 13:34

A union.

SPEAKER_04 13:36

Which is a a modern entity with a geography, with uh borders, with a policy and even foreign relations policy, solidarity. So so so I mean, without without drawing you to the present, yeah, what then gets constituted in 1994? In essence, yeah, in essence, and I'm gonna come uh to you, Prof. Because another important movement uh in Europe in the world is the communist movement, which is a heritage as well of the oppressed of the world. But if the clarion call was a native union, yeah, if same as call was a native union uh that does all these things, then the mission of the ANC as conceptualized here uh is 1994, which should have enabled institutions that were constituting the union.

SPEAKER_02 15:02

No, that that in a sense that is uh that is that is true. Uh because there is this I mean what comes after 1994 as the ANC, the party, is a residue of uh of the of the the of the of the broader of this broader movement, of this broader union. Yeah, it is uh it is uh gospel.

SPEAKER_04 15:24

I'm fascinated by this claim of a when when Sem is imagining in his head what must be formed is a union, he says it's which stretches up to the Titan.

SPEAKER_02 15:40

He says we are one people. That that that speech, that opening address, he says, and and in a sense you could say, if anything, if there is one thing that the ANC has given to South Africa, especially to Africans, is this idea that we are one people. That was at the core of what this parliament of the people. When he said it is the parliament of the people, he's not saying it's a parliament of my friends or of my neighbors. He says this is the parliament of Africans, and remember who's there is people from all over Africa.

SPEAKER_04 16:27

Absolutely. It's possibly the only liberation movement that was formed. Can you think of anything in the continent? Let's say whose form in his in whose formation almost half of the continent is there.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

In fact. In fact, in fact, to push forward the ideas that Prof. If you look at the history, when he said Black he was away, he was still overseas. He is in touch in terms of the diaspora with DuPos. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:19

Yes. He's working with W.E. DuPont.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Yes. And also the ANC is part of the Pan African Congress. He's dying France with Dupos in 1921. That's true. Yeah. So they're there. So so so so so so the international politics and then and the internationalism. In 1921. They go to the Pan African Congress and then in the 1921. It's in it's in Paris. But as as my colleague has mentioned, Henry Sylvester Williams is often the founding father of those around the 1900s. But a South African was part of that. So a black woman, Kinlo. She's part of that. Actually, she's the one who influences um Williams to even come to South Africa. But he plays uh she plays an important role in terms of that. So that's why, therefore, it's not surprising that uh Play makes it a point that we don't lose touch with that. And then if you look at the Treaty of Vesilas, so you remember when the Africaners went there during the conference itself, our leader said they are not going to represent us. We are going to send our own uh They sent a television to Versailles so that when the Africanist claim that they should be given speech and the fact that they want to have a stake in terms of ruling the Union of South Africa. Not only the English, our people were there saying the same thing. To find out what happened afterwards, you find out that the British Premier was pressed, in the sense that he had to organize a meeting with the AC delegations. And when Lord George met them in London, this idea of diaspora and an African Renaissance in terms of politics was also represented by the fact that when they went there, they were also accompanied by black British leaders who are part of the diaspora. So the Prime Minister was even surprised by the fact that he can speak with other candidators who bring in some of his subjects that he cannot meet separately to discuss their own their own leads. So that's how rich it was in terms of. In fact, that's also a continuation of the politics of the formation of the Soviet Union, because we had to engage with the Soviet Union and understand what it represented in terms of world politics, because we we do know about the other side, because there are the people who colonized South Africa. This is a new idea, even though I spoke about labor aristocracy in terms of the foundation of the community or communist party in South Africa, that it was, if you remember, their major sort of catch word. They were talking about the white workers. You know, you know, they were not talking about workers, yes, you know.

SPEAKER_04 21:15

So but I do I do think we we we have mapped out because the African as a subject is already an international subject category. Yes, yes. It has a condition occasioned by both colonization and slavery. Uh long, long, long when uh the first sort of modern republics emerge, uh Haiti is there. So the the ideas of African nationalism have that history, they are fully developed. Be said, including um, you know, the French defeat a monarchy, the Americans are defeating a colonizer. I mean, in a way, America is the first post-colonial uh country. Um the Haitians are defeating slave owners, represented by two monarchies as well as the bourgeoisie of the New World. Now I want to bring in, I mean, another big movement in uh in Europe, not in Russia, prof, uh in Britain is the socialist movement. The uh the big meetings of the International Organization of Workers are taking place in Britain. Britain is the industrial center uh of the 1700s um uh as well as the 1800s. And Scarlett Marx and Marx is there, Engels is there, uh including Paris, yeah, uh Kropotkin is there, and all of that.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:24

My question is, is there any interaction, if any, so that maybe we understand it not to be a phenomenon of the 1920s?

SPEAKER_00 23:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:36

Because these are well-traveled Africans, you've just who gather in 1912. These are worldly Africans. That's true. Was there any interaction before that with socialist and communist ideas that uh you you traced?

SPEAKER_01 23:53

Well, it's not necessarily them, because that will bring that that will bring us to the issue that we might argue that there was nothing new through communalism as practiced by African societies. So that's why therefore But these ideas of 1900.

SPEAKER_04 24:12

That's that's what I'm saying. That's what you speak of.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

That's what I'm coming, that's where I'm coming to, in a sense that therefore you find out that we have a huge question, the so-called division between the nationalist and the communist. But then the membership is overlapping in the sense that those Africans have become members of the Communist Party. The argument is that well, we interpret communism according to our own practical conditions. This is not a new, you know, idea through communalism. You know, the difference is between us and them. We don't kill our kings, they kill their king, the Tsar. We see a continuity with our system because for us, unlike the Tsar, what the king owns, the monarchy owns here, belongs to us as a people. Is our simple look to replace it with this with the Tsar, it's it's it's it's the opposite. It's the opposite. So so amongst them as members of the Communist Party, that became a heated debate, you know, between the so-called nationalist like SEME and then Kumete, a communist. But they belong to the same organization, the ANC. One has networks and links with the South with the communist part of South Africa. And he even goes to an extended to an extent saying that when he went to the Soviet Union, he saw a new Jerusalem, and then the nationalists say, hey, this one is a sellout, he's selling us to the committee. Yeah, yeah. We just have to deal with him because, as you said, this is a new movement, you know, but to Semin and others, it's it's not a new movement. We are for our monarchies, we're not going to destroy our monarchies because there's an extension of responsibilities. But Kumete is more or less like the Bolsheviks. If we are not aware, if we don't take charge, the next thing is going to call for the abolition of monarchies in South Africa. So so so then it calls.

SPEAKER_04 27:19

It's interesting because it's in the resolutions um of the of the of the second international that's caution to the agency. Yes, in the commuter. They are very clear. There's a caution to say nationalists and the chiefs inside the ANC, uh tribal tribal chiefs inside the ANC who you know must be cautioned in terms of their reactionary. It is it is there. But I was wondering if there could have been a different crossing of paths. Maybe there's a a fundamental project, well, a new project for historical research. It doesn't make sense. The maps that you've just drawn, yeah. Scotland, uh the United States, New York, Versailles, uh, Paris. That they're all over. Yes, that they wouldn't have come across, for instance, the Communist Manifesto, or they couldn't have come across communist intellectuals within the African-American community as well as the African British community. Because by the 1800s, there's a proper, proper naturalized uh African population in in the West. It's not um when I'm thinking about, for instance, the example of uh someone like um um son plaki. It's not possible that you wouldn't have come across.

SPEAKER_01 29:04

No, that is they are there. I'm really they're there. It's just that we were quite aware in 1917. We just we've just been kind when we say it's 1921, it's the communist. No, there's a socialist movement.

SPEAKER_02 29:18

Yeah, no, sorry, the international socialist clique.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

It's formed in 1917. It's there, it exists.

SPEAKER_04 29:27

But I'm saying these Africans busy with the project of the Native Union, yes. Surely, it's my curiosity anyway. Surely the the first people can't be these South African white communists like uh Panting and all of them. Yeah, it's surely it can be them, including the phenomena of the Russian Revolution. Yeah, it's late, it's 1970. Yeah, that's like these chaps have been busy with progressive liberation ideas at an international scale.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:07

And uh Lenin is also very late in the ideas of communism.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

If if you look at Aban Tubatu, there's a paper founded in 1912. It was an internationalist in approach. There's a section which deals with international affairs and also that section also focused on these issues and socialist, you know, ideas that are developing, you know, but they have a certain preference as a newspaper, it is an ideological shift. Remember also, it's easy for that newspaper to be even to be banned here if it pushes hard because it's a no-no.

SPEAKER_04 30:56

I'm going somewhere which I suspect you all know the claim about these chaps and their interaction. Uh, firstly, I mean this Kumete semi- uh split which results in Kumete uh being voted out in 1932 uh thirty out of the presidency of the ANC. And he goes actually, you will speak to that in a moment, to if they they fled with the idea of opening an ANC equivalent that would take on the ANC. But my point E my little sense is there's this long enduring claim that it is communists or communist ideas or interaction with communist ideas that opens the ANC up to the type of theater or framework of struggle uh which you were describing and associating with the ICU, for instance. Mass-based movement.

SPEAKER_00 32:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:10

Is that it's at that interaction with those communist ideas, but that up until you know comed and then later, a proper formal organizational alliance, what radicalizes the ANC. Because my my curiosity is that's a bit late.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

Yeah, but yeah, that's what I'm saying. Uh uh, I do not agree with that statement. I think Prof. Munuma is giving us the answer. The very fact that you know, as a people, as leadership, you can come up with the idea of forming a parliament of the people in 1911. That's that's enough for me to suggest that you were not radicalized by a movement that has not yet been formed. It means we are ahead of thinking about new ideas.

SPEAKER_04 33:15

Okay, let's let's let's delve into the communists then. The communists um are black, uh late 1920s. Yeah, late well in the in the not in the not in the formation, not true. By nine when Kumete and Lagoma traveled, yeah, there were already communists who were black.

unknown 33:40

That's true.

SPEAKER_04 33:41

Before the formation of the communist parties, it would seem to me, in the clubs and the reading groups uh around the dock, uh around Cape Town, for example. Yeah, um, a history that I think uh about someone like Tibedi.

SPEAKER_02 33:57

Yes, Tibedi, Nobe, Tonjeni, Khaile who became the the the GS. No, look, I mean they were there were Africans, quite a number of them were there and quite influential in the in the communist part of South Africa. There is absolutely no doubt about it.

SPEAKER_04 34:15

So you see these characters you are mentioning. Yes. Some of them, Chris, this is the the the the thing of dual membership of overlap. Overlap of membership. They are both members of uh the uh the natives uh congress, yeah, and they are active in socialist circles.

SPEAKER_02 34:36

That is the essence of uh Moses Kotane's crater in 1934. So when when when when Moses Kotane in 1934 says uh we we we shouldn't aspire for socialism or communism as it exists in Europe, we should root it in the conditions of the African continent.

SPEAKER_04 34:59

Based on that Eastern Cape was there, you cracked it.

SPEAKER_02 35:03

That's something why it is called the Craddock letter in 1934 because it says this uh Chinese wall between African nationalism and communism and the disgain with which some of the communities, especially white communists, looked at the African nationalist cause is uh quite problematic. And he then presents this interaction, especially of black communists in Craddock with workers, some of whom were not members of the Communist Party. So he he makes that uh argument. But the idea that the ANC was not involved in mass struck is is not completely true. I mean, if you think of a figure like Charok McCai, there is uh a women's march, I mean, in the Free State, I mean, as Eddie has said, yeah, I mean 1914, anti-pass march is and immediately after the in the aftermath of the of the first world war, the ANC leadership, especially here in the Transvaal, is engaging with the structures of uh of uh sanitary workers, I mean uh municipal workers, and and they are trying to get involved, and some of them are you what's what's the area called now, Fiddles or what's here in uh Ontario now?

SPEAKER_01 36:30

Yeah, it had a different name, Friade or something like that. Yes, so so so they were massive.

SPEAKER_04 36:36

Yes, I mean what what so so so let's just clarify you are saying that the idea that protests and matches and uh that frame of engaging in the struggle, uh that in that you are saying NC was not the gentleman's club as we get to be told.

SPEAKER_02 37:00

I mean, uh I mean people if if somebody says those uh forms of protests were brought by uh Communist Party, then there must be a lot of people. Or the Youth League. No, no, no. Yeah, look, I mean, as I as I say, you there is historically what what what we cannot run away from is that the a significant section of the leadership of the ANC at the time was a we could say a middle class leadership in a sense, and that a big part of its disagreement with the Communist Party partly was partly a reflection of its own class interests. But there was a lot more to it. What was the project? What was the project of this parliament of the people? What was the heart of this African modernity? I mean, at the heart of African nationalism, in the first instance, as Pixley Kai Saga Same said in 1912, was to bring about a united African nation. It was quite essential for those African leaders that Africans be united, who are one people, as I have said before. But it was also self-determination. I mean, one of the arguments they had with white liberals, I mean, of the South African Institute of Race Relations, which was established in 1929, was over this question of self-determination, that is Africans, we can think for ourselves. Yeah. We can craft our own vision, right? You cannot just come and tell us what we can do, what we cannot do, and all of that. And and and one of the criticisms of communism by African nationalist leaders was that it was a foreign ideology. And and I don't think it is a small thing that it was a foreign ideological ideology.

SPEAKER_04 39:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 39:05

That it was, but also think about expropriating land and property. You have a people who just a few decades before have been dispossessed of their land violently. And then you come up with an ideology where you say uh a fundamental aspect of that ideology is taking property and all of that. They say, wait, wait, wait, wait. Yeah. We have just lost property. We just lost property. We have just lost property here. And then suddenly you come around and say we must join a movement that will take. I mean, there was an element of class balance. We we cannot, I don't think it would be historically uh inaccurate to say that. I mean, the Pixley Kasiga is these are people who are pulling together resources to buy land, right? They are pulling resources together and by land. He presents a vision of black economic empowerment that says black people must build their own industries, right? Because they thought black people were capable. That was the vision. You could say it had its limitations, perhaps it was not taking into consideration the economic arrangements, the power relations, but that was the vision that they had.

SPEAKER_01 40:29

And it does exist anyway, because they own such land in Pumalang, I think.

SPEAKER_02 40:35

Yes, yes, in Tacadron.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:38

I mean, Africans are buying land not just in Travis in everywhere.

SPEAKER_04 40:42

But you do have a growing layer of uh a sort of new subject category associated with capitalist industrialization in its form as covered in uh Karl Marx's critique that you've got this this worker. Yeah, this worker is increasingly becoming the majority.

SPEAKER_02 41:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 41:12

Uh in the rural and the urban. Um you do have a significant peasant community.

SPEAKER_02 41:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:20

But uh Johannesburg is full of uh industrial workers.

SPEAKER_02 41:26

It is industrial, and that is, in a sense, we could say perhaps that is uh that that was the weakness of that generation that I've characterized as a great generation, that this industrial worker um you know there's an interesting name actually, we call him a lighter. Yeah, they they they see them as threatening in a sense. Adube sees the ICU that is led by Qatari and Champion in a sense as as threatening. Not just because in as much as they were fighting this system that had excluded them, I don't think that they were calling for a disruption, a massive rupture of salt.

SPEAKER_04 42:16

I mean, they they thought they could I mean to the ideas associated here, maybe let's go through them quickly. Workers of the world unite, meaning workers must run the factories. They are the true producers. Yeah. And then a workers and peasant state. Yeah, uh, not very something who of a chief, of a lawyer, a medical doctor might not feel accommodated in the proposition.

SPEAKER_02 42:51

That's true, but also the idea, like as you said, on the land issue. Queen Labo Tveni. The Swazis have been robbed of their land through concessions, right?

SPEAKER_04 43:09

And but yet the ICU is uh larger than membership, and it is it is, as you say, beginning to look to the ANC as a threat in terms of who is the true voice.

SPEAKER_02 43:28

But it is not a revolutionary organization. It's not. It's a it's a mass-based organization without a doubt. In a manner that the ANC at the time was not. In a sense, you could say the ICU in organizational sense. Perhaps was ahead of the ANC perhaps by a decade or two. But it is not a revolutionary, it is led by Clemence Catani for crying out loud. Like uh In 1924, when the ANC is discussing the contest between Jan Smartz and Herzog, he argues that the ANC should support Herzog of the Nationalist Party. It is led by a WG champion, could never be called revolutionary by any stretch of imagination. So while we present the ICU as a mass-based organization, it was definitely not a revolutionary organization, if anything that can be said. What perhaps the ANC and perhaps even the ICU to an extent represented is could call maybe progressive African nationalism or pan-Africanism of sorts.

SPEAKER_04 44:55

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 44:55

Yeah. But um, and that was the argument that they had with Kumete.

SPEAKER_01 45:01

That was the fight, that's what the fight was about.

SPEAKER_02 45:03

That is what the fight, that is what the fight was. Uh I'll leave it to prove whether Kumete was a communist or not. I have huge doubts.

SPEAKER_01 45:12

Yeah, no, he was not. He was not. He was at the right place at the right.

SPEAKER_02 45:18

Kumete was not a communist. Kumete was not a community.

SPEAKER_04 45:23

But Kumete believed in full cooperation of the nationalists with the communists.

SPEAKER_01 45:31

What we call alliance politics.

SPEAKER_02 45:34

No, that is the alliance politics.

SPEAKER_01 45:36

He must have seen something peculiar in Russia. Don't don't don't pick in with Kosat and whatever. They pick in with him. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 45:45

Okay, but something else happened to Komete because the conference he attended is not the Comintern. The conference he attends is a conference against imperial.

SPEAKER_02 46:00

No true. But remember that Kumete comes from South Africa just wondering where there is racial segregation. Yes. He gets to Belgium, he gets to the Soviet Union. He sees a completely different world that for a black man from South Africa would just have been unimaginable.

SPEAKER_04 46:20

So trace Kumeta for us. I mean, the way you dig Sam. What was Gumete's uh uh history? What was what part of the country did he come from? What had he what had defined his travels, education level, and an interesting uh figure in a sense that perhaps unlike the semis, the tubes and all of these guys, he does not have the international education experiences.

SPEAKER_02 46:56

I mean, even though he had been born in Natal, right? Um in the you remember the split that I spoke about between the coast and the inland. He comes from the inland, but then he studies uh in the in the eastern what we call the eastern cape today. I mean, the first time he really gets involved in political activism is to fight the cause of the Zulu King of Dinu Zulu. Remember, Denu Zulu has been sent to St. Helena. Yes. He's been sent to St. Helena. That is how we get involved. But in his conduct, he is no different. He becomes a member of the Natal Native Congress, he's uh an entrepreneur to the extent that the businesses that they were running at the time could be called uh entrepreneurship. So he's not out of the mainstream in any way whatsoever. That the his shift, in a sense, in the 1920s can only be explained in a sense, perhaps partly by the emergence of the ICU, and perhaps you could call the radicalization of that politics. And then there is a communist party of South Africa that has been established in 1921. It is also throwing and they are holding classes. They are holding classes. Yeah, suddenly, if you are a comedia, you want to contest the dubes of this world. I mean, suddenly now there is a base, a political base that you can ride on, I mean, to capture this thing. And the person that he defeats, it's not even Tubay, Zakias Mahaban, who was president of the ANC from 1924 to 1927, and came back later from 1937 to 1940. But what had happened in South Africa in the Mahaban is a reverend, no? Yes, he is as a reverend from Kronstadt. So, I mean, what had happened in South Africa, the radicalization of black politics in the aftermath of the war because of inflation and all of the first story. So that did change, in a sense, it did influence the politics, the broad African nationalist politics. I mean, because suddenly there was an alternative of sorts within the broad movement. That is the wave that Kumete writes that takes him into the presidency of the ANC in 1927. But this presidency does not last because uh it gets contested, I mean, by what is called the old guard of the ANC. That says the ANC now that you represent is not the ANC that was founded in 1912. It was not founded for a foreign ideology called communism that wants to take land poverty and then kill our kings and send them on a silver flood. Oh babe.

SPEAKER_04 50:14

Okay, I guess then uh that brings us to SEME. Yeah, only now the founder of the ANC takes over the ANC when the ANC uh president almost comes from uh uh the Soviet Union and is in full cooperation with the puntings and the La Rumi samus as over my dead board and you contest him. Yes, but only now.

SPEAKER_02 50:52

This is uh this is 20 years. Yeah, almost about uh 18 years after the formation of the formation of the ANC.

SPEAKER_04 51:00

I just have to ask, what is it that Pixley, was it because he was young or he wasn't ambitious? Why why 18 years after the formation of the ANC was he only interested in being its president? When everybody else before him had contested the presidency of the ANC, president general so fiercely.

SPEAKER_02 51:26

Well at the formation of the ANC, if I can say something briefly, I'll let the proof come. And then Pixley Pixley was 29 going for 30 years. So he was he was quite young. Okay. So he was conscious of this fact, yeah, but he was also quite ambitious too. He had other bigger things to think about to think about.

SPEAKER_01 51:44

I mean, think about they get married, he was married already.

SPEAKER_02 51:47

Yeah, but think what Pixley gets married in 1915. Uh, but think think what Pixley Wait. So in 1912 he wasn't he wasn't he got married in 1915.

SPEAKER_04 51:58

He's been a monarch.

SPEAKER_02 51:59

Yeah, well, he lost his wife.

SPEAKER_04 52:00

Yeah, I mean, I don't think you could have been even the SG of the ADS. Yeah, he lost his wife without a wife in in those uh but we just said 1912.

SPEAKER_02 52:10

But remember that uh remember that the interim constitution he had written it himself.

SPEAKER_04 52:14

I mean, I'm sure he could have incited a clause that your marital status didn't he might have, but I'm just saying the group in the rule.

SPEAKER_02 52:22

Yeah, there's some of them, they were quite the big conservative. That uh yeah, no, it's true. But think what Pixley does in 1912 alone, because that's the reason why he's such a fascinating and a historical figure. So he's at the forefront of the formation of the ANC that gets formed in 1912. He starts a newspaper the same year with the assistance of uh the Swazen Goana House, especially Queen Labotzebene.

SPEAKER_01 52:50

And forget the clubs also.

SPEAKER_02 52:54

Yes, it does. And then that does not end there. The the the purchase of land, especially buying land, I mean, from the Africaners in the Northern Transworld, that also happens in 1912. And he's running a law firm. At the heart of Johannesburg, he's arguing he's arguing cases. In the court, in the courts. And they say why courts. In fact, uh one day when he argued a case at the Johannesburg Market Fate Court, it was during lunchtime, the cities came to a stance deal. The black man. So he was wearing a black suit with a snow white shirt, and they spoke like everybody came to this to visit the legal. And he spoke like an African American.

SPEAKER_04 53:53

So the twin the twin is already in the ANC.

SPEAKER_02 53:58

So so so and I mean in fairness, in fairness to Pixley. He had uh he had left something.

SPEAKER_04 54:08

Some of the people are twanging in the ANC, they never even left.

SPEAKER_02 54:10

They never no, I've I've I've had I've I've heard that term, T. But but Pixley, but Pixley got quite involved in a large number of things because in 1912 he is elected the first treasurer general of the ANC, right? It's quite interesting that when the ANC is mobilizing resources to send a delegation to England to protest the passing of the Natives Land Act, you'll think that the Treasurer General of the ANC will be at the forefront of doing that. But actually, Pixel was not at the forefront of mobilizing resources to send a delegation because he was just too busy doing too many things. But it does not mean that he was not particularly interested in what was going on in the ANC. In fact, by 1916, because he was so fed up of Duba for whatever reason, he suggested that Sol Praki should become the president general of the ANC. And Soul Praki refused, I mean, to become the president general of the of the ANC. So in 1930, by 1920, 1928, Same starts suggesting the formation of a different uh I don't know what whether to call it a party, but it is quite interesting. The name he proposed goes back to the issue of the union. It was basically that if they did not reclaim the ANC from Gumade, that in his view had been captured by communists, they will have to form a new organization called the African Union. That is what he proposes that they should establish. And this idea of an African Union was not new for Pixley because, as a student at uh Oxford, he meets with an African-American called Allen Locke. And they were involved in a club called the Cosmopolitan Club. And Pixley was a treasurer once again of his club, and Allen Locke was the secretary. But and he spent quite a lot of time in London. There, too, he proposes that actually they should establish an organization and the name of that organization African Union. So when Pixley um became president at the 1930 conference, which was so contagious. I mean, if you think uh now, perhaps it was an equivalent today of uh of Pulugwane, that is uh that is April 1930. That is when he defeated uh that is where he committed Kumete by 14 votes.

SPEAKER_04 57:06

When when that I don't think the differences in Pulugwans were that small. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 57:11

But also remember the number of delegates were not.

SPEAKER_04 57:14

No, well I mean by I mean proportionally.

SPEAKER_02 57:16

Proportionally, yeah, true. True. The official delegates are now officially and so for the delegates at that conference, yeah, who elected Pixley?

SPEAKER_01 57:29

There were three in the election.

SPEAKER_02 57:31

Yes. I mean it was it was another. Three members with one all with three contestants. Yeah. But what happened? It was the third, it was uh I've forgotten.

SPEAKER_01 57:42

I've forgotten how but it jumped the thirds, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:45

Withdraw and went to two to sixty to sixty same, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:49

Because the vote was going to be split. Kumede might have remained. Yeah, the president.

SPEAKER_02 57:54

And they saw Kumede really as an existential threat to the union, to the union, to the to the parliament, to the parliament. Yes, he was going to be the man who'll bring about the killing of chiefs and the expropriation of property from the nation, from the African nation, all of that will go and and um needless to say, Kumede did win.

SPEAKER_04 58:21

Well, not the presidency. I mean, but I think he's ideologically ideologically. We will we will not in this episode, but we we we possibly have to measure if there was ever in the Freedom Charter and then in Morogoro, yeah, the strategy and tactics, if there was a proper reconciliation in a sense of a synthesis of those ideas. Uh some people may think otherwise because you still get uh struggles in the ANC along those lines.

SPEAKER_01 59:00

No, that's why we're that's why we're doing them chronologically, yeah. Because people simply think that they began at Morocco.

SPEAKER_04 59:10

Yeah, but you were saying, or they began in uh in uh 1955, yeah, and then uh so Buka's coming back. But uh I I do want to get into Seme, now take him on. Same Seme wins this conference, yeah. But he kills the ANC, doesn't he?

SPEAKER_02 59:30

But before before he he gets to that, because we do need to explain why the ANC got into such serious trouble under his under leadership. I mean, one of the first things he does, I mean, when he became president was to attempt to rewrite the constitution of the ANC and reasert it once again the positions of chiefs in the ANC. Because for Sem it was fundamental. It was at the center of this African nation that he imagined that had motivated even for the formation of the ANC in the first instance. Even when you read his speech, The Regeneration of Africa, he praises African institution. He talks about uh in uh in Botswana and all of those things. So he reasserts that. But his leadership style was quite problematic, and I have a sense that a big part of it had been influenced by his experience in the United States where if you are president, you uh do not consider yourself an equal to members of your executive because he literally ran the ANC in an authoritarian sense, I mean, so to speak. By 1932, just two years after his election, he was in deep fight crisis. I mean, uh, like with uh the leadership of uh C ANC, like uh challenging him, saying the ANC is dead. Then in 1932, he draws a pamphlet. Yes, and the title of the pamphlet, I wish I had brought it here. Is the ANC dead, yes. Is the ANC dead?

SPEAKER_04 1:01:35

Well, it can't be if he's not, if he's in charge of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:39

Of course, his answer was that the ANC is not dead, but I think there is a significant actually he requested the air score to reply, yes, before he before he answers, but I mean there is something quite who who is in the airscore?

SPEAKER_04 1:01:57

Ah now because uh the secretary general scott, and by the way, it's interesting because uh T T Mwelly Scott uh is the secretary general when Seme is there, but there is a personal thief between them that might have contributed because uh Seme's first wife became the wife of T.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:29

D. Wellie Scota. Under unfortunate circumstances that I would not go into in this podcast. Why?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:40

No, no, that's not so historical. I mean, if you if you if he's advancing, no, that's not there was a wife in between these. No, no, no, no. Listen, listen. I mean, I'm not saying women.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:53

I'm not saying it was the wife. No, no, no. I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm not saying it was the primary reason. I'm not saying it was the primary reason there were problems. The the the primary reason for a fight in the leadership of the ANC was Same's leadership style. But Same's own private circumstances, and I suppose that is the point that I'm trying to make here, uh were rather um unfortunate for him. Remember that he gets uh strive stripe of the role of Athenis, right? So Same's professional life is in crisis, right? He has been struck off the role because of Athenis. Um because of a case that involved Africans who lived in a well, it is a small suburb now in Pretoria called Waverley. It's just next to N1 before you get to pass Mendling before you get to what is called now Sefako Machato of Red. Oh yes, before you get there, it was it could be called Zambezi or something. Zambezi, it's still called Zambezi. Zambezi before you get there. So it was a farm, and in that farm uh were Africans who lived there. But there was a uh they were trying to remove them, and so uh they were referred to Pixley to represent them as a famous uh lawyer.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:31

Yeah. I know famous lawyers. Give me that book there. No, no, no. That's the man we are speaking about.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:38

We were speaking about, yes. Uh so there was a there was that case, and so there was a bit of an issue about uh overcharging them and all of that, and so the Chamval Law Society reported him, um took him to court, and when the case um it was taken to the high court. And so when he was supposed to when he was supposed to appear, he because he was not present. I mean, so he said he was not aware the the it was postponed to the following day. He did not pitch up, and then the judge, the judge decided to strike of the Waverley Township. Yeah, Waverly Township, yes, of the of the role of uh of Artades. So I mean, can you think about this? I mean, so here is this uh celebrated African lawyer, the founder of the ANC, the president general of the ANC at the time, he struck off the role of uh of Artison, right? And so what he ended up doing was to spend a lot of time in what we call today. Supported by King Sopusa. So he is far away. I mean you could say today that Mbabane and Terose and those royal palaces in in Swaziland are not far away at the time, but uh the mode of transformation of transportation was too fast. So he was basically more than just being perhaps he was absent. He was absent.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:29

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:29

And so he was absent, and the ANC literally collapsed and collapsed under under his uh leadership. So much so that when he got re-elected, um that election cannot be considered to have been free and fair.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:47

The also the conference.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:49

Yeah, the next the next way he got re-elected.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:52

Yes. Which would have been 1933.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:54

So they were talking about 19, 1933.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:58

Yeah. So that cannot be considered to have been free and fair. Uh but he got uh re-elected. Re-elected, and uh so he and maybe there is a lesson to this that perhaps when you have started something, it doesn't mean that we should plead it.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:15

I think so. It is so it's a good lesson, but it is so in 1912, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:20

So for so many years, it did that that he was the first TG.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:25

Yes, he was the first TG.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:26

You you also you also, I mean, it looks like he also may have messed up the very funds of the ANC at the time.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:33

Yeah, look, well, the ANC didn't have much money to start to start with. Okay, he had really significant crises in his professional life. He couldn't support his family, he was dependent on the Swaziki. So he spent a lot of his time in in Swaziland when a lot was going on in South Africa, and one of the significant things in the 30s was Herzog, who was trying to take away the limited franchise from Cape Africans. And so the NC, this organization that you were supposed that was supposed to lead the opposition through the dis and franchise. Was upside up upside. So that is where the All Africa Convention succeeds. He succeeds because of SMARTS.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:23

Yes, in 1936.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:25

In 1936. Yeah, and and but by 1935, especially when Herzog uh introduces the what is called the native bills, one that dealt with the issue of land, and two that dealt with the issue of uh the voting rights of Africans in the main. There were other two that one that uh concerned the voting rights of colors. But when when that happens, when matters reached a head in 1935, the ANC is now. That is when DDT Jabavu emerges.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:03

Because remember what we said about 1912, there weren't a lot of delegates from the yes, and Jabavu is not only absent, he's quite not really interested.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:13

Yeah, but but by 1935, it comes with all the when this their right to vote is threatened, that is when a significant number of Cape Africans come back into the national uh politics as it were. And so, because of the weakness of the ANC at the time, they had to form a new organization to fight that, which was called the All African Convention Convention, yes, which above as its president. That is where Kuma became a star. Became a star because he became the deputy president of the All Africa Convention. It was because of that.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:58

But of course, Mahatu comes back. I mean Mahabani uh Mahabani comes back in 37. He comes back in 1937. Did did Seme contest? He contested and and Ma Ma Mahabani defeated him.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:14

And then after after the results of the voting had been announced, he stood up and said he was withdrawing from the context.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:23

After defeat. After defeat. But he died an ANC member.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:26

Yes, but he said that they said when they remember he's the only ANC president who, when he lost the election, the delegates at the conference stood up and sangosis in Africa. That's our relief today where that he had been defeated. The founder of the ANC. So it is it is an important detail. It is an important detail because sometimes uh the new people. Yeah, when we we sometimes when you are distant from events, sometimes the crucial details that may even explain or enlighten what is going on, sometimes you you you you forget that. But to their credit, by the way, the Mahabane as well as Kuma that we'll talk about next. They included him in their executives after after.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:26

And that's why in 43 he was part of the group of African that rules document. Prof. I want to. I mean, this is uh uh the era we will come to later when from 1940 where Buma and Alata and I actually think make the ANC into something it has never been, for instance, establish headquarters in Johannesburg for the first time, yes, so that the headquarters are not where the president is in 1912.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:08

I mean, when Sima was president, they were in Focrust of all places, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:12

But of all things, yeah, of all things, a new constitution is written, which gives membership even to women, but we uh that, but also does away with the upper house. True. But we'll come back to that year, yes. We'll come back to that. These are the war years, maybe to conclude this uh episode. This is the fig of war. Um the 19 uh 1939 is the Great Depression, yeah. But also uh late 1930s to the early 40s, World War II uh is massive.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:59

I mean, there's a lot of Africans that participate in that war, unarmed carrying knob carries, and uh as well as World War I.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:14

Yeah, but World War II, there were Africans with guns, Fanon is one of them. No, but from South Africa, yes. But the the police of the South Africa was that I do want you to to tell us about the the impact of the war on African politics and the ANC in mid 30s to early 40s.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:45

I mean what I don't know, perhaps while they're yeah, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:48

At the end of the day you're thinking about who's the enemy. Therefore, in terms of the impact of the war, you have to think about that. The enemy is Hitler. Therefore, you have to take a decision whether you participate.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:05

Do we know if the ANC had a position on the war? Yeah. What was the on World War? Both one and two.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:22

We thought we were going to begin there. We thought that's what you've just said.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:26

You want us to begin there in next episode.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:29

Because you've said it.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:31

But maybe just about the Great Depression, maybe one little thing was it contributed to the loss of confidence in the leadership of Kingsley. Not just by the leadership of the NC, but perhaps by just the African people generally. Because remember what was the response of the Herzog government to the Great Depression. Depression. White problems. So the idea was if there is an unemployed white person and there is an employee black person, that the black person must must lose the job so that the white person goes.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:11

Can you imagine and the ANC is not there?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:13

And the ANC is not there.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:15

To fight for them.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:16

To fight. The ANC is not there to take up these issues because the president or the ANC, for whatever reason, largely, largely personal, that his personal circumstances were quite dire. He had been struck of the role of Atenes. But the ANC is not there. I mean, to fight for. And remember, the ICU is literally has collapsed. It has collapsed in 1928. From 1927, the ICU has collapsed. So black people literally have no representation in the in the 1930s. All the way leading up to the war, to the declaration of to the start of World War II in 1938. So um when I know we'll talk about when one perhaps thing about the war we can mention, and perhaps we'll get into detail about that, was the war economy in manufacturing for the war.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:21

For the war that brought a lot of revitalized centers.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:27

So the ANC that Tuma leads in the 1940s, in a sense, is something is the ANC that is dealing with completely different circumstances. It is dealing with a significant API population of Africans that could really be organized. It could truly become an API movement and protest and all of that. So while if we judge, and this is my last point, the first five presidents of the ANC, I do think that we need to think about the circumstances. How did South Africa look like? Say from 1912 to 1940. Where were these people uh that they needed to organize and and mobilize? How easy was it to mobilize the people?

SPEAKER_04 1:17:16

Were they in concentrated areas?

SPEAKER_02 1:17:18

In concentrated areas because you could take a flight now and fly to Cape Town and go to Kylisha and find millions of opposites in a single and call a mass meet. I mean, think if you are Sam, it's either we are in Swaziland or perhaps we are in Amerscrout or Folkland.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:38

Even Johannesburg as we know it's nobody was a very small city. You can't find this man.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:46

Rustenberg, it was a completely it was a completely different context altogether. So the second world war in many ways changes that, and that is the reason why you could have the 1946 mine worker strike, you could have panza, right? Yes, boycotts of 1945 and all. No, it's not. I mean, most people like they are using uh carriages, like horse, yeah, horse drunk.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:24

So so so.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:26

I mean, you saw that photo of Black, he he's like he's writing a bicep. Yes. I mean, imagine my president of the NCU want to come up, as people are writing a bicep.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:36

But it would have been a status, I suppose, at the time. At the time, at the time, yeah. All right, uh we we leave it here for now, and um uh we begin with Uma. Uh, hopefully, we'll carry Kuma uh from Uma to uh to Tambo. Yes, because I think Madiba is more or less the transition president. His Tambo is 30 years. Yeah, Tambu alone. But we'll be able, I think, because then ANC is presiding over many organizations now. The League, women, the leagues later on it establishes inconducies with uh and then ultimately uh it has to contend with uh uh an international struggle.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:29

Uh so it must establish chapters in countries or presence in countries, camps, yes. Uh then it has to have an underground movement. Yes. Uh so the four pilots game. Yes, we'll we'll we'll look into that. Um so let's make a commitment. We're going to be back um tomorrow or the next day.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:52

Yeah. We are going to uh let me see.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:55

Oh tomorrow or the next day.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:56

No, we have two flower.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:58

Yeah, no, it will have to happen. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:03

Um tomorrow, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:12

We'll see about it. We'll see, we'll see. We'll see about it, yeah.