William
Keniston, MA Thesis, 2010
Richard
Turner, a banned political science lecturer from the University of
Natal, was assassinated on the 8th of January, 1978. In the ten years
preceding, Turner had been actively involved in a wide range of
activities radically opposed to apartheid and capitalism. Turner was
a remarkable professor, who taught his students more through
questioning and dialogue than lecture. Turner had a significant
impact on left wing white students. He played an important role in
encouraging white activists to understand Black Consciousness as a
radical politics
to be embraced, rather than shunned. Turner encouraged whites to find
a role for themselves within a struggle that he saw as driven by
Black demands and programmes. In addition, Turner was involved in the
emerging trade union movement, following the wildcat strikes in 1973.
He participated in creating the Institute for Industrial Education,
which had a curriculum focused on increasing class consciousness
amongst workers building democratic trade unions.
In
stark contrast to the predominantly reformist politics of the time,
Turner’s vision
for
South Africa called for a profound reshaping of the boundaries of
possibility for social change. Turner put forward a socialist
critique of South Africa, grounded in a moral and strategic aversion
to authoritarianism. Central to Turner's politics was his book, The
Eye of the Needle: Toward Participatory Democracy in South Africa,
written in 1972. In this book, Turner called for a utopia in which
hierarchy is minimized; a de-centralized polity and economy, which
would rely on structures of cooperative decision-making and
management.
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