Black Student Politics

Higher Education and Apartheid from SASO to SANSCO, 1968-1990

Saleem Badat

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317849612
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Black Student Politics, Higher Education and Apartheid examines two black national higher education student political organizations - the South African National Students' Congress (SANSCO) and the South African Students' Organization (SASO), popularly associated with Black Consciousness. It analyzes the ideologies and politics and organization of SASO and SANSCO and their intellectual, political and social determinants. It also analyzes their role in the educational, political and social spheres and the factors that shaped their activities. Finally, it assesses their contributions to the popular struggle against apartheid education and race, class and gender oppression and the extent to and ways in which their activities reproduced, undermined and/or transformed apartheid and capitalist social relations, institutions and practices.

1

Interpreting the Character, Role and Significance of SASO and SANSCO: A Conceptual Framework

As I have indicated, the appropriate framework for the analysis of SASO and SANSCO is not a given and by no means obvious. Hence, it is necessary to make explicit the overall framework of assumptions, concepts and specific questions that structure and guide my investigation, analysis and interpretation of SASO and SANSCO. The “framework” is much like what Abrams refers to as a “problematic”:

… a rudimentary organisation of a field of phenomena which yields problems for investigation. The organisation occurs on the basis of some more or less explicitly theoretical presuppositions – it is an application of assumptions and principles to phenomena in order to constitute a range of enquiry… [O]ne’s problematic is the sense of significance and coherence one brings to the world in general in order to make sense of it in particular (1982:xv).

I draw on diverse literature from the fields of social theory, social movement theory, student politics and comparative student activism and South African political economy. The emphasis, though, is less the development of theory in relation to student activism than the elaboration of a framework which plays a heuristic function with respect to the analysis and historical and contextual understanding and interpretation of the character, role and significance of SASO and SANSCO.

Student Politics

Given the concern of this investigation, the clarification of the concept “student politics” is a useful starting point.

Burawoy defines politics as “struggles over or within relations of structured domination, struggles that take as their objective the quantitative or qualitative change of those relations” (1985:253). He further argues that

[w]e must choose between politics defined as struggles regulated by specific apparatuses, politics defined as struggles over certain relations, and the combination of the two. In the first, politics would have no fixed objective, and in the second it would have no fixed institutional locus. I have therefore opted for the more restricted third definition, according to which politics refers to struggles within a specific arena aimed at specific sets of relations (ibid.:253–54).

This understanding of politics “refuses to accept the reduction of politics to state politics and of state politics to the reproduction of class relations” (ibid.:254). The reason why Burawoy refuses to conceive of the state only in relation to class relations is because

[w]hat is distinctive about the state is its global character, its function as the factor of cohesion for the entire social formation. The state not only guarantees the reproduction of certain relations but, more distinctly, it is the apparatus that guarantees all other apparatuses (ibid.).

The merit of Burawoy’s approach is the space it creates for extending “politics” to diverse social arenas beyond the state – education, health, environment, etc. – and the recognition it gives to the role of the state in the reproduction of other non-class, yet important, social relations having to do with, for example, race or gender. In terms of this one, can conceive of “education politics” and “relations in education”, and these being of as much interest to a state as relations of production, the social relations between classes in a social formation. One can also conceive of “curriculum politics” and “governance politics” as subfields of education politics. Finally, one can begin to think about politics also in relation to specific social classes and categories such as workers, women, youth and students.

Burawoy’s formulation steers us to conceive of “student politics” as being characterised by the struggles of students “within a specific arena aimed at specific sets of relations”. It also helps us recognise that since student struggles occur within a particular institutional setting it means that they will be “regulated” and, necessarily, also structured, conditioned and shaped by the distinct institutional arrangements and organisational matrices of the setting.

Burawoy’s definition of politics is immensely useful. However, as Wolpe (1988:55) has argued, it may be “too restrictive”. Wolpe acknowledges that the structure of a specific sphere “will condition the form and orientate the content of the struggles, which occur” but rightly points out that the “objectives of struggle” may not be confined to social relations in a particular sphere (ibid.). That is to say, the concerns of students and student organisations may extend beyond the educational arena and social relations in education to social relations in the political sphere. This means that the form and content of student struggles may be mediated not only by educational apparatuses but also by the apparatuses of the political sphere.

Student organisation, movement and body

Despite its virtues, the literature on student politics – the involvement of students in particular structural and historical settings in activities aimed at either conserving, reforming or/and fundamentally transforming prevailing social relations, institutions and practices – tends to be conceptually sloppy. Frequently, key concepts such as “student organisation”, “student movement” and “student body” are not defined and are conflated, even though they are conceptually distinct. For the purpose of this investigation, it is important to define these terms and to outline their relationship to one another so that there is clarity around what is the essential unit of analysis.

A student organisation is a collective of students whose basis of affiliation to the organisation is either political, cultural, religious, academic and/or social. Various terms such as “council”, “club”, “society”, “association”, “union” and even “organisation” itself may be used to designate such a formation. Most student organisations are characterised by a voluntary membership, although some student organisations, for example the student representative councils (SRCs) at black higher education institutions, have automatically incorporated all registered students. A large variety of student organisations have existed at black higher education institutions. The majority has been specific to particular institutions, but some have existed as regional or national organisations. Prominent black national higher education student organisations, despite their names, have been the University Christian Movement, the Azanian Students’ Movement and, of course, SASO and SANSCO. The terms and conditions under which organisations have been allowed to operate has, however, frequently been the object of conflict and contestation between students and the authorities of higher education institutions.

The term student movement is difficult to define and the following will have to suffice as a working definition:

The sum total of action and intentions of students individually, collectively and organisationally that are directed for change in the students’ own circumstances and for educational and wider social change (Jacks, 1975:13).

Of course, “action and intentions” could also be directed at the preservation of the prevailing student situation and maintenance of the educational and social status quo. Notwithstanding this, the above definition does have certain implications:

1 Not all student organisations are necessarily part of the student movement.

2 The student movement is not reducible to a single organisation and is not an extension of one or even many student organisations, but is a broad entity, which includes individual students who are not formally attached to organisations.

3 A student movement is a dynamic entity whose size and boundaries are likely to vary depending on political conditions, time of academic year and the issues being confronted.

The student movement is, then, to be clearly distinguished from a student organisation. The objects of this investigation are SASO and SANSCO and, since the unit of analysis is student organisation, it is important, to hold on to the distinction between the “student movement” and “student organisation”. However, it is often the case that a specific student organisation stands in a particular relationship to the student movement, enjoys a certain status within, and plays a certain role vis-à-vis, the student movement. Thus, while the higher education student movement in South Africa is not the concern of this book, it is necessary to analyse the connections and relations between SASO and SANSCO and the student movements of their time since this has a bearing on their character, role and significance.

The term student body denotes the collective of individuals who are engaged in academic study and vocational education and training at a particular higher educational institution. While each higher education institution has its own specific student body, the totality of individuals registered at all the higher education institutions collectively constitute the general student body.

The student body has been analysed in two ways: in relation to the political participation and to the political affiliation of students. Hamilton, writing about student politics in Venezuela, has defined three categories of students: “militants” who are actively involved in student and national politics; “sympathisers”, who, while not consistently active, may or may not support organisations, vote in elections, attend meetings and engage in demonstrations and other activities; and “non-participants”, who for a variety of reasons stand aloof from student politics (1968:351–52). Soares comments that “political participation embodies different forms, levels and degrees of intensity”. This means that “reading about politics, voting, and stoning embassies are different forms of participation”, which are not only “different actions” but also “involve different degrees of intensity” (Soares, 1967:124).

Lenin, on the other hand, focused on political groupings within the student body. Writing in 1903, he identified six groups within the general Russian student body. Three groups, the “liberals”, the “social revolutionaries”, and the “social democrats”, represented particular political positions. Another three stood in a specific relationship to the student movement: the “indifferents” were unresponsive and detached from the student movement, the “reactionaries” opposed it, and the “academics” believed that the student movement should be concerned solely with academic issues. In Lenin’s view, the existence of these groups was not accidental, but inevitable. Students as

the most responsive section of the intelligentsia … most resolutely and most accurately reflect and express the development of class interests and political groupings in society as a whole. The students would not be what they are if their political groupings did not correspond to the political groupings of society as a whole (Lenin, 1961d:44–45).

If the relationship between a student organisation and the student movement is of some concern, so is that between a student organisation and the student body. The student body constitutes a student organisation and is the source of potential members, supporters and sympathisers, as well as antagonists. Moreover, its size, social composition, nature and so on are bound to condition the activities of a student organisation with respect to student mobilisation, organisation and collective action and, thus, the character and role of an organisation.

History, Structure and Conjuncture

I have argued that the analysis of SASO and SANSCO must take into account the historical, structural and conjunctural conditions under which the two organisations operated. The distinction between structural and conjunctural

refers to the division between elements of a (relatively) permanent and synchronic logic of a given social structure, and elements which emerge as temporary variations of its functioning in a diachronic perspective. The distinction allows one to separate the analysis of the pre-conditions of action from the factors activating specific forms of collective mobilisation (Melucci, 1989:49–50).

For example, until 1990 the denial of full and meaningful political rights to black South Africans was a permanent feature of the South African social order, and the fundamental basis for black social disaffection and political opposition. However, during the apartheid period (1948 to 1990) there were various government initiatives which gave the impression of conceding political rights but fell far short of extending all the rights associated with full citizenship. These initiatives were consistently the trigger for anti-government political protests and mobilisations.

One reason for considering structural conditions is that, as Abrams so cogently puts it,

[d]oing justice to the reality of history is not a matter of noting the way in which the past provides a background to the present; it is a matter of treating what people do in the present as a struggle to create a future out of the past, of seeing that the past is not just the womb of the present but the only raw material out of which the present can be constructed (1982:8).

Another reason is that “what we choose to do and what we have to do are shaped by the historically given possibilities among which we find ourselves” (ibid.:3).

Structure and action

Social structures, institutions and practices condition social activity and struggles. Crucial to the analysis of the outcomes, and success and failure, of organisational initiatives and collective action, and also to understanding the form and content of struggles, is to ask

under what conditions do these struggles occur; what are the conditions which structure them and affect their outcome? Of particular importance in this regard is the question of the form or structure of the political terrain in addition to the question of the form of the state (a distinction which is rarely made in the literature) (Wolpe, 1988:23).

To state that social relations and institutional arrangements “condition” social action is not, however, to argue that they constrain solely as subfields of education politics in the sense of rendering struggles and change impossible and automatically guaranteeing the reproduction of existing social relations. As Wolpe argued, “the formation of structures and relations is always the outcome of struggles between contending groups or classes” (ibid.:8). Class and popular struggles can, and do, undermine, modify, and in certain cases even transform social structures and institutions, and the latter are ultimately the outcome of such struggles.

Moreover, in South Africa,

the apparatuses in and through which white domination is maintained may stand not only in a functional, complementary and supportive relationship to one another, but also in relations of contradiction and conflict … [T]he possibility is opened up that, within certain apparatuses and institutions, white domination may continue to be reproduced, albeit in changing forms, while within others it becomes, at the same time, eroded (ibid.:9).

In other words, notwithstanding its generally authoritarian and repressive character, the apartheid state and its myriad apparatuses and institutions cannot be conceived as omnipotent, absolutely monolithic and homogeneous, or as impermeable to political opposition.

The use by Wolpe of the concept of “access” is pertinent here. He argues that

certain state apparatuses provide the possibility for mass or class struggles and others do not. The difference lies in the type of access which is available in relation to different state apparatuses (Wolpe, 1988:57).

Wolpe suggests that there are at “least two different modes of access to state apparatuses which may have vastly different effects upon the possibilities of class struggles from within these apparatuses” (ibid.). One kind of access leads to the isolation of individuals and to individualised contestation. Another kind, however, which applies to state educational institutions, “provide[s] different conditions for action” (ibid.:58). This is because institutions such as universities “are premised on, and depend on, access of individual subjects … who are brought into direct relationship with one another” (ibid.). Here “participation” is “a sine qua non of the functioning of the institution and thus establishes an essential condition for the possibility of a politics of participation within such state apparatuses” (ibid.).

Finally, social analysis, according to Abrams, must recognise the relation of the individual as an agent with purposes, expectations and motives to society as a constraining environment of institutions, values and norms – and that relationship is one which has its real existence … in the immediate world of history, of sequences of action and reaction in time (1982:7–8).

The relationship between action and structure needs to be “understood as a matter of process in time” (ibid.:xv). Th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• 1 Interpreting the Character, Role and Significance of SASO and SANSCO: A Conceptual Framework
• PART ONE “Black man, you are on your own”: The South African Students’Organisation, 1968 to 1977
• PART TWO “The Freedom Charter is our Beacon”: The South African National Students’ Congress, 1976/1977 to 1990
• Conclusion
• Appendix 1: SASO Policy Manifesto
• Appendix 2: SANSCO Constitution and Policy Document
• Endnotes
• Bibliography