tounder -of resistance, openly opposed the strike movement which it produced. But his movement was already merging into a much wider one against the proposed 'whites only' government of the new Union of South Africa in 1909.
1909 in turn saw the first countrywide movement of Africans and in 1912 the African Native National Congress - renamed the African National Congress (ANC) in 1923 - heard Pixley Seme, a young black lawyer, that: "The white people of this country have formed what is known as the Union of South Africa - a union in which we have no voice in the making of laws and no part in their administraTOn. We have called you therefore to this conference so that we can together devise ways and means of forming our creating national unity and defending our rights and privileges.' World War I however exposed the weaknesses of the ANC's largely middie class founding leadership. Believing a British victory could bring reform, the ANC leadership attempted to damp down struggle and even recruited black people to fight for British colonial ambitions against Germans Namibia.
This stand aborted the mass movement which in 1913 had developed into the first anti-pass campaign organised by African women in the the Orange Free State, and the first sustained strike of struggle by blacks in the South African mines.
The mass struggle resumed after the war with a wave of union battles. In 1920 71,000 black miners struck. Chamber of Mines had to admit the struggle had practically paralysed the country'. Eleven miners were shot, but the power of black working people was now plain for all to see.
Out of the post World War I strike wave the Industrial and Commercial Union (ICU) was formed Clements Kadalie. Kadalie had led the 1919 Port Elizabeth dock strike. 1923 10,000 of the members wee womer The 'constitutionality" however broke the ICU's back. Kadalie reacted to increasing repression by rejecting strikes as 'unconstitutional'. In 1926 he contrived to explain have the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) expelled spontaneous 1927-28 pushed the ICU membership: up to 200,000 but the leadership renounced the strikes. The ICU broke up soon afterwards.
The 'constitutionality" of directly surfaced again in the political movement. The All Africa Convention (AAC) of 1935 brought African, Coloured and Indian peoples for the first time to oppose a segregation bill introduced by Prime Minister Hertzog. This bill effectively removed all non-Europeans from the voting rolls tion Councils' (NRCs) instead.
The AAC leadership however threw in itself into the NRC elections - claiming that they had to use whatever consitutional mechanisms were around to push the AAC's case.
In reality the NRCs were not merely powerless but instruments: of developing apartheid state. From this The its Communist Party itself.
utilised the slogan 'workers of the The largely decisive turn to black workers onl Stalinism launched in the late 1920s leaders and cut it off from the nationalists. This reduced the CPSA to a rump and created the space for an inThe fluential Trotskyist movement.
followed every twist of Stalin's line and subordinated everything to support for the ANC, the CPSA supported the old ANC leaders in for the NRC again under boycott ticket.
By the 1940s and 1950s black radicals were ICU's 30,000 not keen on the CPSA - and why the ANC Youth League initially developed issue independently of it.
trom strike wave in?
issue soon 'Native Representathe. 1914 ANC delegation
THE REAL character of the Socialist Party government of On coming to power Mitterrand promised the Kanak people of these islands 'peace and independence'. Instead they have met torture, » rapidly escalating French police and military imprisonment, Kanak resistance to France has been mounting rapidly and dominating the life of the country.
SUSANNA OUNEL a long-time activist in the Kanak national liberation struggle, what has been happening in New Caledonia and the history of her people's struggle against the French THE Caledonia not the colWhen tney arrived came Socialist Action 13 September 1985 Mitterrand in repression.
There explains In 1953 Our parents formed the first Kanak political party, the Unior Caledonienne (UC) they began to ask for an improvement in our living conditions. 3000-strong FLNKS demonstration in Noumea on 11 March it is a 'crime'. the 14 Kanak they We did not in the bush.
hypocritical witholding Our colonialism of necause l do every job.
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h Africa's te
nowhere more starkly revealed than in its policy in the French colony of New Caledonia.