Читать книгу The People’s Paper - Christopher Lowe - Страница 21

The editors’ attitude to the state was consistently critical, but alert to their need to keep operating by maintaining the flow of funds received to print government notices. They also reflected a dualism in the attitude of the black elite to officials. There were occasional moving, even affectionate eulogies to respected officials such as R. T. Coryndon, Captain King and Colonel Pritchard, although often the intent was also to throw into sharper relief the more repressive policies of less liberal white politicians by emphasising the ‘fair go’ approach of liberals.

In 1914 the editor described the funeral of ‘Kgosi-Kenna’, the late Captain W. Alan King, as ‘far away the longest ever seen in Pretoria’. A rally of African chiefs, ‘about forty five in number coming from such districts as Pietersburg [now Polokwane], Waterberg, and the farthest corners of the Pretoria district’ attended, ‘notwithstanding short notice and the impassable nature of the rivers and the wrecked state of railway lines’. And they came not ‘merely in obedience to the rule “DE MORTIUS NIL NISI BONUM” (say nothing but good of the dead)’ but rather ‘as a mark of sincere regret and deep sorrow they feel at the loss of one whom they took to be their great friend’. Abantu-Batho did not miss the chance to underline its point: ‘How well could native administration be carried on if the Government would always see that native affairs were placed in the hands of officers that sympathise with the native people and enjoy their confidence!’ The editor praised ‘the graceful act’ of Anglican Bishop Furse in ‘allowing Rev. M. M. Mokone of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, a native’, to participate in the wake, and concluded: ‘It is only to be hoped that this simple but useful act will go a long way towards bringing a good and clearer understanding between the white and the black people.’⁶⁵

A similarly conciliatory piece in 1924 described Pritchard, on his retirement, as ‘a gentleman’, ‘patient, sensitive of a wrong’, who made the Native Affairs Department ‘a place for shelter and not a persecution office such as it was’; there was no rancour towards officials who had actually helped blunt the radicalism espoused by the newspaper. Behind this was a mixture of tactics necessary to survive in a hostile environment and an acknowledgement of the need for allies, together with the measured moderation that was a hallmark of Congress policy. Pritchard, as Director of Native Labour, had to relate to black workers, but Abantu-Batho, responding to white stereotypes that Africans had ‘no sense of gratitude’, chose to highlight the Congress connection: ‘The Transvaal Native Congress and the black workers on the Rand have certainly disproved this assertion.’⁶⁶ Similarly, the new Minister for Native Affairs, Jansen, received exaggerated praise as ‘the sort of man in whom all natives should have confidence’, perhaps with a degree of the benefit of the doubt extended to new officials or sarcasm at Jansen’s claim that native policy emanated, not from Parliament, but the white public. We might even imagine an intimation of future armed struggle in the musing that

[o]ne wonders at the silly thought that the natives as conquered by the sword, imagines must free himself likewise from the labyrinth of a thousand and one unjust and repressive laws. Until the African shall form himself into one solid whole by evolution this just be a forlorn hope and dream.⁶⁷

On the other hand, there was fierce denunciation of hated white leaders and their governments, such as Smuts (his ‘only answer to us, is by bullets’),⁶⁸ General Hertzog (‘the biggest political conspirator in the British Empire’) and Oswald Pirow (‘the naughty little Minister of Justice … now the South African Mussolini’).⁶⁹ If Coryndon received praise, then other officials in Swaziland were not spared. ‘A shocking story’ reported that Lord Buxton had raised taxes by 50% and, ‘to make things worse … a man who has more than one wife must pay tax of (30/–) for each wife, meaning if a man has 10 wives he is to pay £15 each year’.⁷⁰ Insensitive white magistrates also came in for criticism. Abantu-Batho’s own correspondent had been present in a court case in Grahamstown in which a white man had been acquitted in a case of sexual ‘immorality’ in which the black woman had been convicted – a case that defied Euclidian logic.⁷¹

There was strong engagement with the Natives Affairs Department and Director of Native Labour, bodies that could cut off paid state advertising. A 1917 report on the SANNC meeting in Bloemfontein discussed an executive resolution protesting the treatment of TNC executive members who were forced by government officials to strip and be dipped in sheep wash, thus ramming home the indignities faced by Africans in the province. Action was urged from the Secretary of Native Affairs, Barrett.⁷²

The people did not elect government-sponsored ‘Native Conferences’; this was clear to Abantu-Batho. Sending African delegates would be a ‘blot on the escutcheon of their manhood and a gross insult to the intelligence of the whole African Nation’. The paper would therefore ‘continue to condemn this conference root and branch’.⁷³ This did not mean it ignored opportunities to influence state policy. It drew attention in English and vernacular columns to the 1930–31 sittings of the Native Economic Commission and encouraged Africans to present evidence.⁷⁴ Neither did it stop other activists from making use of its pages. The Vigilance Committee of the Western Native Township published a detailed statement of grievances over low wages, high rents, and subsequent seizure of belongings and ejecting of families once they fell into arrears.⁷⁵ I. B. Moroe, chairperson of the Joint Committee of the Non-European Organisations of Marabastad Location, Pretoria detailed a meeting between a deputation of his body, represented by S. P. Matseke, Moroe, and ten others, and the Acting Secretary for Native Affairs in July 1930. They criticised a range of anti-black laws, including the pass laws and their extension to African women, and the failure of the Department of Native Affairs to protect their interests.⁷⁶