Norman Levy on the Congress Of The People

By Norman Levy
Published 9th December in the Cape Times

The idea of the Freedom Charter and the Congress of the People (COP), from which it emanated, had so much potential that it was already seen as of historic importance before either the COP took place or the
Freedom Charter was written.

The South African Indian Congress described the COP as “of historic importance” in a letter to the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) early in 1954, requesting the institute not to proceed with its proposal to hold a national conference to “analyse the position of the non-European people”, as it might interfere with the ANC resolution on a similar theme taken in December 1953 at its annual
conference in Queenstown.

At that conference, Professor ZK Matthews proposed the idea of a national convention which would be representative of all South Africa’s inhabitants, whose task it would be “to draw up a blueprint for a free
South Africa of the future”.

Perhaps influenced by the decision of the SAIRR to call a convention, he had been mulling over the idea for a few months before the ANC met in December 1953. He had raised the matter at the provincial Annual Conference of the ANC in Cradock in the Cape in August 1953, stating in words that have often
since been cited: “Various groups in the country are, as you know, considering the idea of a national convention I wonder whether the time has not come for the ANC to consider the question of convening a
national convention, a congress of the people, representing all the people of this country, irrespective of race or colour, to draw up a freedom charter for the democratic South Africa of the future.”

This was far more advanced in scope than the convention mooted by the SAIRR, whose proposal did not include anything as inclusive as a congress of the people or as inspirational as the idea of a freedom
charter.

All that the institute had said, up to that point, was that the proposed convention would analyse the position of the non-European peoples and that there might be a preliminary meeting to consider the desirability of an agenda for the proposal. A conference about a conference.

The context for these proposals was the state’s assault on human rights since 1950, which had exacerbated the racial tensions within the country and made the need for an appropriate response urgent.

The summary termination of the Defiance Campaign in 1953 in the wake of the Criminal Laws Amendment Act, and the continued presence on the statute books of the six specific acts against which the Defiance
Campaign was mounted, required, at the very least, an assertion of the demands for equal rights for all South Africans and a new call for the abolition of discriminatory legislation.

Interestingly, in July 1951, about two years before “ZK’s” intervention at Cradock, the Guardian, probably speaking at least for the congress leadership, wrote in an editorial entitled “Votes for All”, that “the
time has come for a South African chartist movement There is nothing illegal or subversive about such a movement.

Its aim is not to destroy parliament but to convert it into a true parliament of the people, not to restrict the vote to one section, but to open it to all.” The notion of a chartist movement, however, was left in abeyance as the chosen course of action was civil disobedience. After the summary ending of that action, an analysis of its strengths and weaknesses prompted the congress leadership to mount a more all-embracing mass action, which would, in its assessment, match the heightened political awareness that the Defiance Campaign had created. It was also important, for the morale of its supporters, that the organisation take action against the regime’s punitive response to political protest.

For all these reasons, the idea of a congress of the people, at which the delegates would adopt a freedom charter which would assert the demand for civil rights for all South Africans, seemed to be the
appropriate next step.

As it happened, it excited the imagination of the masses and soon became a force with which the regime had to contend even more seriously than it had the Defiance Campaign. As the chartist movement took root, the leadership of the national movements added flesh to the original proposal and fine-tuned the
concept of a charter, at the same time clarifying the proposal for a congress of the people.

It would not be “a mere get-together of delegates”, but the broadest representative assembly of direct representatives of ordinary people of all races ever held.

It would reach out to the masses “whether or not they belonged to the (national) organisations” and unite with them in calling for such an assembly. The movement would enable all lovers of freedom “to go on the attack and sweep the country with a clear and limited call for freedom”.

The leadership believed that this was an objective which ordinary people understood and about which “all levels of the congress membership were passionate”. That this assessment was accurate was to
some extent manifested in the intensity of our activity and the language of the campaign.

This last was essentially the genius of Rusty Bernstein, who as the “movement’s publicist”, reached out to the masses with a quality of prose that matched the expectations of the occasion. Accordingly, the
Freedom Charter would help to “mobilise the people up and down the land and awaken an echo (for freedom) in their hearts”.

When the leaders of the national organisations met in March 1954, they elected a joint planning committee accountable to the National Action Council, an instrument that had already proved itself in developing the
working unity of the congress organisations during the Defiance Campaign.

Collectively, the NAC gave some form to the campaign, which at that point was still a stimulating idea without shape or structure. Its first meeting was held in Stanger, Natal, near the home village of Chief Albert Luthuli, who was restricted to that area. A number of important decisions were taken there that set the course for the COP, ensuring that it would be people-driven, decentralised and start immediately.

Accordingly, the congresses would work to form local people’s convention committees in every village and reserve; they would do the same in the cities and towns and in the rural areas throughout the country.

As their purpose was to mobilise and inspire the people, their first task was to call public meetings to hear what grievances people had and what they thought should form the contents of a freedom charter. The idea was that they should effectively participate in the drafting of such a document, the contents of which “will emerge from countless discussions among the people themselves (and) be in every sense of the word the charter of the ordinary man and woman”.

Interestingly, the form of that assembly and the election of the representatives to it initially assumed the symbolic image of “a parliament of elected delegates of the people” and the act of electing

the delegates, “a general election”. In retrospect, I think it was the novelty of the approach to the
campaign for the COP that appealed to the people’s imagination; its emphasis on hearing people, rather than telling them what was important to them, the spontaneity of its style, its insistence that everything
that touched their lives – whether it was education, employment, shelter or the ordinary freedoms associated with speech, movement, justice or equity – were human rights and proper subjects for a freedom
charter.

The idea of writing all this down and “telling it like it is” was in itself empowering and was at the same time an assertion of our rights, when these were being whittled away with scant regard for the people affected.

The irony of a people feeling its way “towards the inspiring goal of a fully democratic state for all South Africa”, when the country was faced with the stark alternative “of going completely fascist”, did not
escape Walter Sisulu, who was encouraged by the favourable conditions “the work of the liberation movement” had created for the success of the Congress of the People.

The idea of the COP had captured his imagination no less than it had many in the leadership and activists in its ranks, including my own. He was excited by the possibilities it offered and thought the event would
be the most significant in the country’s history, “for there for the first time would meet in a great assembly … the true representatives of the people”.

The elected delegates would come from diverse centres, “carrying with them their resolutions, demands and grievances of all sorts from the people who sent them.” This excitement was captured in “The Call to the Congress of the People”, a passionate document in the format of a leaflet drafted for the working committee by Rusty Bernstein, under the imprint of the National Action Council of the Congress of the People.

He was obviously touched by the emotions that the idea of the COP had aroused. He was not by nature overtly passionate and, but for a gifted facility to turn a phrase to the most compelling advantage, he was
taciturn by temperament and usually set himself at a distance from others.

When he wrote, reason, supported by solid argument, usually prevailed over emotion: “The Call” (the first of the major documents of the campaign) was an exception, an indication of the extent to which he was
personally inspired by the egalitarian idealism of the action.

Its stirring message reached out “to brothers without land and children without schooling”; to the farmers in the reserves; to the miners “in the dark shafts and cold compounds far from our families” and the
farmworkers and workers in the factories: it called on them to speak of long hours, housing and pass laws, of taxes and of cattle-culling and of famine, ending with the repetitive refrain “Let us speak together,
all of us together – African and European, Indian and coloured. Voter and voteless. Privileged and rightless. The happy and the homeless Let us speak of freedom.”

The leaflet closed with an appeal to form committees to campaign for the Congress of the People and to gather in groups to send in their demands for the Freedom Charter.

It is interesting that early understandings of the event were centred on the idea of a charter emerging in situ from the demands and grievances of the thousands of delegates present at the “great assembly”. Sisulu initially expressed this (as already noted) when he said, “there for the first time would meet in a great assembly the true representatives of the people carrying with them their resolutions, demands and grievances of all sorts from the people who sent them”.

The logistical implications of such a process, were it to have happened, would have been unimaginable and, as events turned out, a huge disaster, for the COP in its closing stages was surrounded by the police and the army, even as the charter was being adopted. Fortunately, the organisation of the COP and ideas on the presentation of the Freedom Charter crystallised during the course of the 18-month campaign and in the end a draft document was presented to the “assembled” delegates, largely compiled from the “demands” that had
been submitted to the COP for their adoption.

The remarkable feat achieved (by Bernstein, who drafted the charter on behalf of the National Action Council) was that the document, as presented, had the spontaneity of a people’s charter and the resonance of the diverse demands for rights that were submitted over the many months of the campaign.

It was an age of charters. The localised, grassroots style of the COP campaign was taken up by women: ANC members, church congregants, trade unionists and housewives came in large numbers to a conference in
Johannesburg in April 1954, just as the campaign for the COP was getting under way.

They adopted a charter of women’s rights, resolutions embodying the demands of women “who came forward to tell of their hardships, their dreams and their aspirations”. Significantly, they also passed a resolution for a federation of South African women’s organisations, which gave rise to Fedsaw, the

Federation of South African Women, which subsequently played a legendary role in mobilising women for the struggle. There were two aspects of the conference that I recall quite clearly. The first was the identification of the local struggles of women with the international movement of women for equity at work and at home. The impact of this was to place this ordinary meeting of women from the smaller and larger towns and cities in South Africa on a world stage with women everywhere. This, at least, was the impression I had, listening to the speeches on that occasion. There were 150 women delegates who seemed to come from all over South Africa, representing more than 230 000 women.

Hilda Watts Bernstein spoke of the struggle of women for peace. Fatima Meer addressed the meeting on the terrible disabilities of Indian women in South Africa; Ida Mtwana, fiery and militant as ever, on the struggles of African women as mothers, as wives and workers. Duma Nokwe, the only male on the platform, fresh from a trip abroad, spoke of the emancipation of women in China.

He was dwarfed in height by Ray Alexander, who stood next to him, as she reminded the delegates that they were not alone but joined by working women everywhere in the world.

What I remember most about the event was the new division of labour arising from the inversion of “traditional” tasks, where the women were the delegates who made impressive presentations to the conference, while the men provided the catering and rendered all the services. Paul Joseph captured this in an amusing piece in Fighting Talk, where he wrote: “A visit to the kitchen showed a hub of activity. You would find John Motsabi, banned secretary of the Transvaal ANC, and Youth Leaguer Harrison Motlana slicing ham… Young Faried Adams would be preparing biscuits and munching some at the same time. Leon would be washing lettuce, while Norman would be preparing fruit.”

The conference took up much of my time and energy. I remember making several journeys in my battered car to meet the delegates at the old Johannesburg train station, transporting them to the various houses
where they were to be accommodated and later ferrying them to the Trades Hall where the conference was held. After that, the catering was an easy task.

If there was anyone who could connect the national and international struggles, it was Moses Kotane. Banned from public speaking and from the ANC, his party outlawed under the Suppression of Communism Act, he was still able to make political interventions through the columns of Advance, the movement’s feisty

newspaper. It was not an open secret that he was the general-secretary of the new

party (or even publicly known that he was a member of the South African Communist Party), but as the former general secretary of the Communist Party of South Africa, his interventions were treated seriously. Kotane placed South Africa in a world context: the present policy in  South Africa had its origins in

colonialism and the Empire; it was rooted in the basic structure of South Africa, based on cheap labour
and the deprivation of democratic rights; it rested on the granting of concessions and monopolies in business, political representation and commercial opportunities as well as skills and professions to the white middle class and the (white) working class in order to buy their support and sustain South Africa’s top-heavy structure.

“Only on such a soil could the vile doctrines of apartheid take root and flourish The choice was between suffering an increasingly brutal dictatorship or emancipating the majority in a multiracial democracy

with equal rights for all.” The liberation movement, a serious opponent of fascism, was the only
major opposition to stand up to the government. The representatives of big business and the mine owners feared democracy more than dictatorship and sought a political compromise with the Nationalists
under the guise of stability; in reality, this was for the protection of their investments.

Warming to the recent campaigns of the movement, Kotane warned that a movement that failed to go forward would go backward. It was the absence of a great central task, common to all democrats, that was a retarding factor during the year between the ending of the Defiance Campaign and the COP. The Congress of the People was just the task to unite the great majority against fascism.

“It would be a great exaggeration to claim that any substantial section of the white population has yet granted the vital truths that the real alternative to a fascist republic is a genuine all-embracing democracy;
that any real struggle against the autocratic Swart-Malan state is in allying with the non-European majority.

It is in the field of race relations that the Nationalists must be met and defeated if any sort of harmonious development is to take place.” He concluded this part of his long statement with the seemingly gentle
warning that those who were against the democratic majority “may preserve their freedom or their unscientific prejudices, but they cannot preserve both”.

Kotane displayed the same level of excitement at the idea of the COP as Sisulu, despite the former’s cautious tendency to stand back and subject the movement’s policies to rigorous scrutiny and analysis. The idea of millions of ordinary men and women electing their representatives to a “real” assembly and discussing “how South Africa should be governed, who should elect the men and women who make the laws, how these should be administered… at meetings great and small throughout South Africa”, fired his political imagination and led him to conclude that the Freedom Charter “could become an historic

document, guiding the way forward to a new and better life”. That is not to say that he did not have his own ideas as to what the charter should say. In his view, it had to do more than express “pious hopes in words that mean all things to all men”. It had at least to claim the four freedoms.

These, however, were not the conventional freedoms of speech, assembly, movement and equality before the law that would normally come to mind.  What Kotane was saying was that unless “the rich farmlands were shared among their rightful owners” and “the mines and monopoly owned industries become the property of the people” and “workers were guaranteed the right to free trade unions and wages were sufficient for
a civilised life (which included the provision of houses schools and hospitals)”, there could be no freedom.

All the topics raised by Kotane were important, but none as pressing as the questions concerning the “who” and the “how” of the COP. The significant “suggestions” regarding the contents of the Freedom Charter
on the subjects of the land, mines, workers’ wages, and social services, including education and health, would be addressed later, when the demands were sorted, catalogued and interpreted.

The tension between the specificity of Kotane’s characterisation of the charter and the need for open-endedness in the “broad church” of the Congress Alliance, would be the burden of Bernstein’s task when drafting the final document.

For the moment, the joint executives of the four organisations and the NAC addressed themselves to matters of process and (for the sake of clarity) rehearsed their original proposals.

The COP would be a mass assembly of delegates elected by people of all races, not only in the cities but also in every village, mine, farm and kraal. As representatives of the people, the delegates would consider
detailed demands “incorporated and embodied in a declaration”.

This was an advance on previous thinking as to how the charter would “emerge”. Local COP committees would be set up on a provincial basis as well as in the towns, factories, suburbs and streets.

As to the questions of who would be elected and how the people would vote for them, the directives were clear: delegates would be elected by direct vote and speak directly at the COP. (The NAC emphasised that the
people had suffered enough from indirect representation in the all-white parliament and were fed-up with the contempt with which the government had treated the natives’ representatives in parliament and
the members of the NRC who were elected (indirectly) through electoral colleges).

This assembly would be a genuine parliament. Anyone, without distinction of colour or sex, over the age of 18, could vote and election day would everywhere be an occasion for great political demonstration and rallies.