SOUTH AFRICA
Some 30,000 leaflets were distibuted informing people of the end of the boycott. The leaflet was reproduced in the Natal Witness. It said that the boycott has achieved one of its main objectives - namely to focus attention on the struggle of the SARMCOL workers, and no useful purpose is to be served by prolonging it. At the appropriate time we will decide to resume the boycott should we consider it to be in the interest of the SARMCOL workers'.
White businesses were clearly jolted by the boycott and did put pressure on SARMCOL to negotiate with MAWU - but SARMCOL was intransigent. The Pietermaritzburg Chamber of Commerce said that the boycott made it realise 'the need for increased dialogue and negotiation on the socioeconomic situation' with organisations supported by the Black community.
The boycott also had lessons for those organising it. Clearly it was important to consult properly with Black traders around practical issues like sufficient and appropriate stock. Also, Black traders did not match Alen Rlack traders did not match white businesses in prices and goods range, leading to considerable sacrifi ces by consumers.
To succeed, a consumer boycott must maintain broad support, which calls for more delicate balancing of competing interests than in other popular campaigns. Prospects for inculcating working class content into a consumer boycott campaign are limited, because workers, particularly those in the commercial sector, are most vulnerable in such a class alliance: their jobs are at risk and they are less able to support a long-term boycott. Also, women in the community bear the brunt of immediate material consequences of a consumer boycott.
But the fact that in Pietermaritzburg, the unions and the Congress, Unity Movement and Black Consciousness traditions held together for the first time ever, is a positive precedent.
The Pietermaritzburg boycott provided opportunity for democratic exchange among a wide variety of organisations. There were tensions. Unions suggested that community organisations offered more rhetorical than practical support. Community organisations felt the unions exerted too-rigid control, not allowing the former space to operate more effectively. But both now understand better the dynamics, structures, strengths and weaknesses of the other. This will allow more realistic expectations of each other in struggles waged together in future.
The central political and organisational question which emerges is surely that of the relationship between trade unions and community organisations.
SADI United Democratic under attack RICHARD DE VILLIERS
United Democratic Front treasurer and political lawyer Victoria Mxenge was assassinated on August 1, 1985, outside her house in Umlazi, Durban. By August 13 violence throughout the Durban area had left 63 dead and about 1,000 injured. Over 42 shops and shopping complexes were looted and burned, and many dozens of homes destroyed.
Youth 'rampaged' through the Umlazi and Kwa Mashu townships, setting up roadblocks, stoning police and burning down administration board offices. Indians and Africans clashed in a series of riots in the Inanda/Phoenix area. The Ghandi settlement on the outskirts of Phoenix was destroyed. Many companies closed early on August 8 and 9. And several schools had total boycotts. Leaders and representatives of all political persuasions publicly expressed fears of another Zulu/Indian race riot like that of 1949.
On the face of it, it is difficult to link these events with Menge's assassination. Initial explanations ranged from assertions about 'agitators' whipping up feelings among an essentially passive populace, to declarations that the people have had enough. But these explanations are too superficial.
DOCUMENT Front
There is proof that a mob of Inkatha supporters surrounded Mxenge's home, and threatened to burn it down the day before her funeral. Winnington Sabelo, KwaZulu Legislative Assembly member for Umlazi, also led an impi [armed group] against a group of mourners at a funeral of unrest victims on August 17.
The exact significance of these incidents in the overall picture is not clear. One factor, however, which underlines the bloody fortnight is the relationship between Inkatha and the UDF.
Since the formation of the UDF in Natal, both organisations have seen each other as rivals. More than that, they have attacked and condemned each other persistently in the media and on public platforms.
One of the first issues Natal UDF contested was the murder of UDFsupporting students on the Zululand University campus towards the end of 1984. This set the tone for an extremely antagonistic relationship between the organisations.
The UDF and Inkatha had already rejected the new constitutional deal and the Koornhof Bills. Both were committed in principle to a national convention - as expressed by the UDF at its Rocklands launch and Chief
15 a International Viewpoint 13 January 1986
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Youth organisations were the conspicuous exception, and it was largely from these groups that the UDF filled its many mass rallies. Unfortunately, well-attended public meetings, spiced with anti-Inkatha speeches and slogans, do not protect supporters when they go home to the townships.
Against this background, it was Against this background. it was almost inevitable that the two organisations headed for a series of confrontations.
Whether there was a state 'dirty tricks department' involved in the clashes, or whether Inkatha leadership simply decided to eliminate the UDF in the urban areas in August is not entirely clear. There are indications of a conspiracy: the fact that police casspirs [jeeps] escorted bus loads of amabutho to break up funerals. But further information is needed before categoric statements can be made.
A conspiracy is not really at issue here. The state can be expected to play whatever cards it has ruthlessly. What is clear is the outcome of the clash. With the police turning a blind eye, Inkatha has burnt out and harassed UDF supporters in all major townships in and around Durban. In one instance, known UDF supporters were hounded out of Hambanathi and sought refuge at a priory in Verulam.
Inkatha has secured Umlazi and Kwa Mashu by appealing to the older members of the community, promising to discipline the youth and restore law and order. No doubt this is convenient for the state as it contemplates the 'Natal Option'
UDF affiliates like the Joint Rent Action Committee and the Detainees Support Committee have been unable to operate successfully since that August fortnight. Township people, aware of the dangers of being associated with the UDF, are concerned to distance themselves from the organisation. The UDF has little attraction for them: it appears to be Indian-led, with a predominately radical, and by implication, violent, young membership which displays anti-worker tendencies in its calls for stayaways. As they see it, to belong to the UDF now almost certainly means having your home burnt down, and possibly death.
With the UDF leadership in detention, and a weak organisational infrastructure, the UDF is unable to defend itself and its supporters against the combined onslaught of Inkatha and the state. International Viewpoint 13 January 1986
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Buthelezi in a recent statement.
They also protested against the increase in the bread price. In spite of these similarities, the organisations never attempted to work together on these issues. In fact spokespersons for both organisations were at pains to deny any possible common ground. Each continually insisted that their anti-Koornhof Bills campaign and anti-bread price campaign were different. The relationship remained antagonistic.
Despite these campaigns, and the heightened level of political awareness throughout the country, neither organisation was able to tackle its own serious grassroots organisational problems.
The UDF lacked organisational structures but had tremendous potential support. Inkatha, though it had strong organisational struetures, drew on, at best, ambivalent support.
Apologists for both organisations would deny these charges, and no doubt there are variations and subtleties according to class, age and area. But the general trend seems that
Inkatha was weakly supported in the greater Durban area and the UDF was poorly organised in the African townships.
Inkatha's mode of organisation shows many of the characteristics of the fascist political movements which emerged in Europe after the depression in 1929. Ideologically,
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Amanzimoti INDIAN OCEAN Magabeni Jmkomass ottburgh appeals to symbols of Zulu nationalism and anti-Indian rhetoric are obvious examples. However, more significant is its mode of organisation. Patronage based on the provision of jobs to civil servants and trading licences to small businesses, the "to 'gauleiter' system of neighbourhood cells, and a private army (the amabutho) not averse to using force against recalcitrant 'supporters' , are very similar to the mode of organisation of Hitler's Nazi party. Street violence of the 1930s has its echo in Durban of the 1980s.
The UDF in Natal is difficult to categorise. Unlike many mass-based left-inclined organisations around the world, it has no relationship with powerful worker organisations and trade unions. At the outset, SAAWU affiliated to the Front, but had its own problems of leadership. The Natal UDF made little effort to forge links with the more powerful FOSATU affiliates. So it was left to develop a mass base entirely on its own - something it was not designed or able to do.
The UDF, relying on community based affiliates, had a weak presence in Umlazi, Kwa Mashu, and the informal squatter camps in Inanda. Its affiliates were powerful in the small townships of Lamontville, Chesterville and Hambanathi. However, the leadership that emerged there became cut-off from day-to-day community