Shane Moran - Alternation Journal
Shane Moran - Alternation Journal
Shane Moran - Alternation Journal
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T/7e Dividect African S<br />
id Hernson<br />
annihilation of the tribal polity which was the first impulse in the colo<br />
administrator's mind. Fear of the complete proletarianisation of African labourers<br />
crucial to the change in policy.<br />
This approach provided a clear link between economy and society bu<br />
innocent of political elaboration, particularly in Legassick's (1974; 1997) work. TI<br />
support for attelnpts to reconstruct the reserves, the encouragement of a traditional pet<br />
bourgeoisie, the coercive nature of migrant labour whereby African migrants w<br />
forced to return and renew links with the rural area, all show a logical connect<br />
between the cheap labour strategy and the political superstructure. Later, of course,<br />
cheap labour theory has been contested for relying on a functional and undynainic<br />
of the relations between the political and the economic. It is well known that in<br />
1960s and beyond, the dysfunctional side of political oppression became cle<br />
apparent and apartheid became in living reality a regime of crisis. The separ<br />
between politics and economics became a gulf, and intensified with the economic cr<br />
endemic to late apartheid. But none of this amou~lts to grounds for rejecting<br />
essential truths of the cheap labour argument in the foundations of segregation<br />
apartheid.<br />
In a sense capitalism appeared in South Africa in a weak fonn, able only<br />
provide for the capitalist class itself, a white middle class and a privileged<br />
class, while imparting misery and degradation to the majority. Its modernising mi<br />
was so~nehow blunted, its destructive edge against traditionalism held back.<br />
An electoral reform that does not affect the appointment of the Nativc<br />
very opposite direction is undertaken in policy even though the extension Authority and its chiefs-which leaves rural areas out of consideration as<br />
relations worked inexorably, if incompletely, to dissolve prior modes of produ so many protectorates-is precisely about the reemergence of a<br />
More than any other issue, the land question shaped the character of colonial s<br />
decentralized despotism! (289).<br />
The market in land was incomplete and would remain incomplete, and the sustainin<br />
patriarchal relations on communal land became the watchword of the great and weal<br />
victor in electoral politics feels entitled to the right to rule over subjects through<br />
Capitalism came late and, unlike the situation in post-war South Korea, Taiwan, ve Authorities, to appoint chiefs, etc.: 'the issue in a civil society-centred contest<br />
Japan, the conquerors turned their swords toward the entrenchment of the old orde to be who will be master of all tribes' (289). The ethnicity OF the president is<br />
these countries the essential hold ofold authority on the land was decisively broken 1 as the rural is governed through patrimonial relationships, and rural<br />
in Africa the process appears essentially different as the old order is allowed to retai<br />
allocation of land, by and large, and there is no general market in land. In South A<br />
the most productive and extensive tracts of land were appropriated by the whi<br />
the chiefs were reinforced in their power over the scraps which remained. Some ofth<br />
were just sufficient to sustain, not a tribal mode of production, hut a modicu<br />
for traditional family life and custon~. This was enough to disguise the i<br />
absurdity of the Bantustans fro~n the rural poor. As could be anticipated, the<br />
migrant held desperately on tp these plots as a relatively cheap family home.<br />
econo~nic and the political intertwine, separate out, and recombine in different str<br />
to reveal the essential relations of one of the most perverse and destructive so<br />
our time. The weakness of Citizen nndSllbject is that the mode of political dominatio<br />
foregrounded at the expense of these other factors. This said, one of the merits<br />
Marndani's book is its perception of post-colonial political developme~lt and<br />
complexity ofthe broad processes ofdemocratisation.