How the failed ideals of 1970s activists haunt post-apartheid SA

Ian Macqueen, The Mail & Guardian

South Africa is in many ways a very different country to that envisaged by political activists of the 1970s. For one, the equitable society they anticipated would replace apartheid remains a chimera. Instead, a process has taken place that political geographer Gillian Hart calls the “denationalisation” and “renationlisation” of the economy under the African National Congress (ANC).

Students, Apartheid and the Ecumenical Movement in South Africa, 1960–1975

Students, Apartheid and the Ecumenical Movement in South Africa, 1960–1975 by TigersEye99

Re-imagining South Africa: Black Consciousness, radical Christianity and the New Left, 1967 – 1977

by Ian Macqueen, PhD Thesis, 2011

This thesis places Black Consciousness in comparative perspective with progressive politics in South Africa in the late 1960s and the 1970s. It argues that the dominant scholarly focus on Black Consciousness, which is passed over as a ‘stage’ in the Black struggle against white supremacy, insufficiently historicises the deeper roots, and the wider resonances and ideological contestations of the Black Consciousness movement. As they refined their political discourse, Black Consciousness activists negotiated their way through the progressive ideologies that flourished as part of the wider political and social ferment of the 1960s. Although Black Consciousness won over an influential minority of radical Christians, a more contested struggle took place with nascent feminism on university campuses and within the Movement; as well as with a New Left-inspired historical and political critique that gained influence among white activists.

Black Consciousness in Dialogue: Steve Biko, Richard Turner and the ‘Durban Moment’ in South Africa, 1970 – 1974

Ian McQueen's 2009 paper on the 'Durban Moment' gives some sense of the degree to which the university was a central site for the politics of BC, as well as support for the black trade union movement, in the early 1970s. It is online here.