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
17 - Between Rajbansi’s ‘Ethnic Guitar’ and the String of the ANC Party List
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
For the ANC, the years immediately following its unbanning were a mixture of excitement, vindication and turmoil. It had to deal with the negotiation process, the re-entry of exiles, and reconnecting with its internal allies and the underground. Alongside this, as elections loomed the organisation had to get on with the complex process of developing party lists.
In doing so, the ANC had to take account of those returning from exile, internal activists, and provincial and ethnic sentiments. It also had to create space for those who had once been part of government structures and had decided to join the ANC. The process was fraught with tension as individuals and groupings lobbied and positioned themselves to gain entry into national and provincial legislatures. The future of the NIC and the position of its leading cadres in the inner workings of the ANC were also thrown into the mix.
A number of NIC members served in the country's first non-racial Parliament, while others claimed to have paid a price for being fingered as part of the cabal within the UDF and NIC. Jerry Coovadia, for example, reflected on this time and his own ostracism in a 2019 interview:
Once the ANC was unbanned, there was a lot of criticism of the UDF which hinged on the fact that it was believed that there was a cabal of Indians who controlled both the direction and the resources of the UDF. So that led to a lot of differences between the returning ANC, the trade union movement, and the UDF. Some of us who were Indian in the UDF paid a price for that. And as the branches of the UDF fell away, and new branches of the ANC were created, many of us who had participated before − well, let me speak for myself, I was just too deeply wounded to participate in an organisation where my bona fides were being questioned. I wasn't the same sort of political animal that many of my colleagues were, like Pravin Gordhan and Zak Yacoob, or others who could take the political heat of the cut and thrust of political affairs. So it wasn't that I withdrew willingly, but it was my inability to face up with what was demanded of this period, where one had to fight off these types of accusations, which are deeply racist.
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- Colour, Class and CommunityThe Natal Indian Congress, 1971-1994, pp. 291 - 306Publisher: Wits University PressPrint publication year: 2021