Ideologies, Identities, and Place in South African History

The geo-spatial proximity of different black social strata and their shared national oppression and history—including resistance to oppression— facilitated ANC-worker contacts. The ANC presented its claims to political leadership as a string of implicit memories, images and shared traditions, wrapped in various ideologies. These ideologies are discussed below, and then related to class issues as they affected black labour.

The history of the ANC and black workers usually has been posed in terms of ideologies or class or, more recently, of identities. They often had different ideologies, identities, or class backgrounds, but they also shared features and sought unity across differences. Identities can take diverse forms—including national, social, cultural, political, gender, imperial, and others—and can be flexible, socially constructed, and multiple. Historians of Africa agree precolonial Africans moved in and out of multiple identities and colonial and post-colonial identities were crucial to the nationalist project. The investigation of identity helps us frame the history of movements such as the ANC in their widest sense and to see how national and other identities might be viewed from the perspective of the colonial subject or subaltern. The clarification of identities of ANC leaders helps better explain why they related to workers in ways they did. We still know relatively little about the totality of the identities of early leaders of the ANC, the most significant vehicle of African nationalism in South Africa. Important in this regard were African nationalist, liberal, imperial, and class identities.

The ANC was founded to bring together diverse cultural identities and political bodies. Colonisation had overlaid established African identities, ruptured the unity of African civil and political life, and encouraged divisions. A shared sense of British identity, respect for “British justice” and cultural sharing such as common use of English language facilitated colonial rule and helped mould outlooks of indigenous political leaders. Yet invoking of British values and liberalism by Africans did not take place without ambiguity or subversive sub-text. Unrewarded loyalty, racist attitudes, state violence, and African nationalist challenge gradually dissolved the legitimacy of colonial hegemony and encouraged African identities.