Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Acronyms and Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Repression, Revelation and Resurrection: The Revival of the NIC
- 2 Black Consciousness and the Challenge to the ‘I’ in the NIC
- 3 Between Principle and Pragmatism: Debates over the SAIC, 1971−1978
- 4 Changing Geographies and New Terrains of Struggle
- 5 Class(rooms) of Dissent: Education Boycotts and Democratic Trade Unions, 1976−1985
- 6 Lenin and the Duma Come to Durban: Reigniting the Participation Debate
- 7 The Anti-SAIC Campaign of 1981: Prefigurative Politics?
- 8 Botha’s 1984 and the Rise of the UDF
- 9 Letters from Near and Afar: The Consulate Six
- 10 Inanda, Inkatha and Insurrection: 1985
- 11 Building Up Steam: Operation Vula and Local Networks
- 12 Between Fact and Factions: The 1987 Conference
- 13 ‘Caught With Our Pants Down’: The NIC and the Crumbling of Apartheid 1988−1990
- 14 Snapping the Strings of the UDF
- 15 Digging Their Own Grave: Debating the Future of the NIC
- 16 The Ballot Box, 1994: A Punch in the Gut?
- 17 Between Rajbansi’s ‘Ethnic Guitar’ and the String of the ANC Party List
- Conclusion: A Spoke in the Wheel
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - The Anti-SAIC Campaign of 1981: Prefigurative Politics?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 October 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Acronyms and Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Repression, Revelation and Resurrection: The Revival of the NIC
- 2 Black Consciousness and the Challenge to the ‘I’ in the NIC
- 3 Between Principle and Pragmatism: Debates over the SAIC, 1971−1978
- 4 Changing Geographies and New Terrains of Struggle
- 5 Class(rooms) of Dissent: Education Boycotts and Democratic Trade Unions, 1976−1985
- 6 Lenin and the Duma Come to Durban: Reigniting the Participation Debate
- 7 The Anti-SAIC Campaign of 1981: Prefigurative Politics?
- 8 Botha’s 1984 and the Rise of the UDF
- 9 Letters from Near and Afar: The Consulate Six
- 10 Inanda, Inkatha and Insurrection: 1985
- 11 Building Up Steam: Operation Vula and Local Networks
- 12 Between Fact and Factions: The 1987 Conference
- 13 ‘Caught With Our Pants Down’: The NIC and the Crumbling of Apartheid 1988−1990
- 14 Snapping the Strings of the UDF
- 15 Digging Their Own Grave: Debating the Future of the NIC
- 16 The Ballot Box, 1994: A Punch in the Gut?
- 17 Between Rajbansi’s ‘Ethnic Guitar’ and the String of the ANC Party List
- Conclusion: A Spoke in the Wheel
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Once the NIC had settled on boycotting government institutions, it operated like a well-oiled machine. This is clearly demonstrated by the sheer number of pamphlets and letters it distributed within the Indian community to persuade potential voters to boycott the July 1979 LAC elections. Ten thousand personally addressed letters were sent to the residents of Durban warning that LACs were mere advisory bodies whose advice was ‘left on the shelves to collect dust’. This was a trial run for the main event: the campaign to delegitimise the SAIC, particularly by organising a boycott of the upcoming SAIC elections. These were originally scheduled for 26 March 1980 but were subsequently delayed until November 1981.
In July 1979, the Anti-SAIC Committee − consisting of M.J. Naidoo (president), Dr Korshed Ginwala (vice-president), Thumba Pillay and R. Ramesar (joint secretaries), Farouk Meer and Perry Pillay (joint treasurers), as well as A.H. Randeree, D.K. Singh and Marie Subramoney − circulated 9 000 copies of a newsletter named The Call. This name deliberately harked back to times past. The Call for Freedom and Justice newsletter had first been published in the 1940s by Cassim Amra. He was a member of the radical NIC faction that won hegemony under the leadership of Monty Naicker and led the NIC into an alliance with the ANC in the 1950s.
The four-page newsletter contained messages of support from Nokukhanya Luthuli, widow of Chief Albert Luthuli; Dr Nthato Motlana, chairman of the Soweto Committee of Ten; and Hassan Howa, president of the South African Council on Sport (SACOS). It also contained a critique of the SAIC by Dr A.D. Lazarus and, significantly, a contribution by Obed Kunene, editor of the Zulu newspaper Ilanga, which was aligned to Mangosuthu Buthelezi's Inkatha movement. This is important, given that relations between the NIC and Inkatha would deteriorate dramatically over the next decade.
The line-up of contributors cut across racial boundaries. Nokukhanya Luthuli, wife of the former ANC president and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize who was instrumental in crafting the alliance between the NIC and the ANC, was a revered figure in her own right. Motlana, a medical doctor, had emerged as an influential figure post-1976, while Hassan Howa had galvanised the anti-apartheid sports movement with the slogan ‘No normal sport in an abnormal society’.
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- Colour, Class and CommunityThe Natal Indian Congress, 1971-1994, pp. 117 - 132Publisher: Wits University PressPrint publication year: 2021