Showing posts with label Julian Brown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Julian Brown. Show all posts
Thursday, 23 May 2013
Thursday, 5 April 2012
An Experiment in Confrontation: The Pro-Frelimo Rallies of 1974*
by Julian Brown, Journal of Southern African Studies
This article examines the political nature of South Africa’s Black Consciousness movement through an account of the pro-Frelimo rallies organised in Durban and at the University of the North by the South African Students’ Organisation (SASO) and the Black People’s Convention (BPC) in September 1974. It places these rallies in the context of these organisations’ adoption of confrontational and public forms of protest after 1972. These represent a high-water mark in Black Consciousness organisation and provided the excuse for the state’s prosecution of the leaders of the movement. Despite this, these rallies have been understudied. This article therefore presents a new account of these protests. It shows how the leaders of SASO and the BPC progressively revised their ideas about public confrontation through the process of
organising these rallies. After the Minister of Justice announced his intention to ban them, these leaders refused to back down. The rallies each took place as planned, and each provoked a response from local police forces – which, in turn, were clearly expecting the rallies and prepared for the task of dispersing them. This article suggest that the embrace of confrontational forms of protest by SASO and the BPC should be understood as representing a significant moment in the development of public forms of mass protest in South Africa.
This article examines the political nature of South Africa’s Black Consciousness movement through an account of the pro-Frelimo rallies organised in Durban and at the University of the North by the South African Students’ Organisation (SASO) and the Black People’s Convention (BPC) in September 1974. It places these rallies in the context of these organisations’ adoption of confrontational and public forms of protest after 1972. These represent a high-water mark in Black Consciousness organisation and provided the excuse for the state’s prosecution of the leaders of the movement. Despite this, these rallies have been understudied. This article therefore presents a new account of these protests. It shows how the leaders of SASO and the BPC progressively revised their ideas about public confrontation through the process of
organising these rallies. After the Minister of Justice announced his intention to ban them, these leaders refused to back down. The rallies each took place as planned, and each provoked a response from local police forces – which, in turn, were clearly expecting the rallies and prepared for the task of dispersing them. This article suggest that the embrace of confrontational forms of protest by SASO and the BPC should be understood as representing a significant moment in the development of public forms of mass protest in South Africa.
Friday, 9 September 2011
SASO’s Reluctant Embrace of Public Forms of Protest, 1968–1972
by Julian Brown, 2010
This article suggests that the South African Students’ Organisation (SASO) began its life committed to a policy of non-confrontational protest and that – until 1972 – its leaders sought to prioritise strategies of negotiation over strategies of public protest. This general policy was confirmed in SASO’s response to white student protests in 1968 and 1970, as well as in a series of discussion documents and General Council resolutions proposed in 1970 and 1971. This policy was, however, challenged by the events that took place at the University of the North following the expulsion of Onkgopotse Tiro in 1972. A wave of seemingly spontaneous student protest forced SASO’s leaders to reconsider their apparent suspicion of public, confrontational forms of protest and reluctantly to accept the necessity of committing the organisation to such protests. I argue that this reluctant embrace was the product of contingent circumstances and pressures from below, rather than the result of an ideological or theoretical shift on the part of SASO leadership. This in turn suggests an alternate approach to the history of SASO, an approach that focuses less on a process of ideological development and more on the contingent details of its institutional history.
This article suggests that the South African Students’ Organisation (SASO) began its life committed to a policy of non-confrontational protest and that – until 1972 – its leaders sought to prioritise strategies of negotiation over strategies of public protest. This general policy was confirmed in SASO’s response to white student protests in 1968 and 1970, as well as in a series of discussion documents and General Council resolutions proposed in 1970 and 1971. This policy was, however, challenged by the events that took place at the University of the North following the expulsion of Onkgopotse Tiro in 1972. A wave of seemingly spontaneous student protest forced SASO’s leaders to reconsider their apparent suspicion of public, confrontational forms of protest and reluctantly to accept the necessity of committing the organisation to such protests. I argue that this reluctant embrace was the product of contingent circumstances and pressures from below, rather than the result of an ideological or theoretical shift on the part of SASO leadership. This in turn suggests an alternate approach to the history of SASO, an approach that focuses less on a process of ideological development and more on the contingent details of its institutional history.
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