Land and liberty : the Non-European Unity Movement and the land question, 1933-1976

Kayser, Robin

Land and liberty : the Non-European Unity Movement and the land question, 1933-1976

Master Thesis

2002

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Department of Historical Studies

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

This dissertation examines the political practice of the Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM) in the South African countryside during the latter half of the Twentieth Century. It demonstrates that the NEUM was the only liberation movement in South Africa which maintained that the land question was one of the most fundamental questions confronting the liberatory struggle in South Africa. It shows how the NEUM acted on their belief that the acute land-hunger experienced by the majority of the population in South Africa would be the mobilising force for a revolutionary overthrow of the existing political, social and economic order in South Africa This dissertation argues that the NEUM was the only liberation movement to consistently assign importance to the political organisation of what it termed the "landless peasantry" in the African reserves. Through a series of case studies this dissertation charts the trajectory of the NEUM's political work in the South African countryside from the early 1940s until the early 1970s. In so doing the dissertation also challenges the established historiography whic maintains that the NEUM shied away from popular struggles and did not develop into an organisation rooted among the population. The study commences with outlining the historical roots and ideological foundation of the NEUM. The bulk of the dissertation examines the practical implementation of the NEUM's political strategy in the countryside. It shows that between 1945 and the early 1960s the African reserves were seething with political ferment as rural dwellers resisted the implementation of numerous oppressive laws and regulations. Through supporting and attempting to provide direction to reserve dwellers in their struggles, the NEUM cadres gained a peasant following. By the early 1960s the NEUM laid claim to have captured the support of several numerically significant peasant organisations that emerged out of the struggles in the reserves. The final chapters of the dissertation argue that South Africa entered a "pre-revolutionary phase" in the early 1960s. They suggest that had the NEUM succeeded in gaining the necessary support in Africa to launch an armed campaign, the outcome of the liberatory struggle in South Africa may well have been fundamentally different. These chapters examine the changes in political strategy adopted by the NEUM in the early 1960s and the rapid growth of the African Peoples' Democratic Union of Southern Africa (a new national political organisation launched by the NEUM in 1961) among rural dwellers and migrant workers.

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Keywords

Historical Studies

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