History Making and Present Day Politics - Stolten's African Studies ...

H i s t o r y i n t h e n e w S o u t h A f r i c a
collaborative attitudes towards the apartheid state common to some liberals.
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The liberal tradition in South Africa contains many moral qualities, but
also many unanswered questions, above all concerning the relationship between
capitalism and racial discrimination. In a situation clouded by widening
social gaps, 39 which could eventually lead African workers and unemployed
to challenge fundamental economic assumptions and norms, proponents
of liberalism in South Africa can hardly afford to leave these questions
unanswered. 40
An important condition for those radical and Marxist-inspired historical
interpretations, which, from the beginning of the 1970s, challenged both the
official apartheid ideology and liberal academic dominance, was the recurrence
of popular political struggle in apartheid South Africa itself. After the
Soweto Uprising in 1976, a growing respect for the militant black resistance
influenced the historians. In the last half of the 1980s, the situation in South
Africa was characterised by repeated waves of widespread popular protests
and the brutal attempts to suppress them. At the same time, the economy
moved into a real crisis. 41
This situation affected the choice of subject matter researched by progressive
historians, so that new issues were brought into focus. The process of pro-
38. For example, Houghton, Hobart D., The South African Economy, Cape Town:
Oxford University Press, 1964, accepting separate development in the last chapters,
p. 212; Bromberger, Norman, “An Assessment of Change. Economic Growth and
Political Changes in South Africa: A Reassessment” in Schlemmer, Lawrence and
Webster, Eddie (eds), Chance, Reform, and Economic Growth in South Africa, Centre
for Applied Social Sciences and Ravan Press, 1978, defending the system at p. 58.
On the other hand as Merle Lipton has made me aware of during our discussions,
many progressive political liberals like John Harris, Hugh Lewin, Eddie Daniels,
and Patrick Duncan suffered as victims of apartheid.
39. Charles Simkins, “What happened to the distribution of income in South Africa
between 1995 and 2001?”, University of Witwatersrand, 2004. Published on the Internet
by Southern Africa Poverty Reduction Network.
40. Some attempts have been made to keep the critical liberal tradition alive, even if the
project of political liberalism has been less than convincing in the post-apartheid
setting: Vigne, Randolph, Liberals against Apartheid. A History of the Liberal Party of
South Africa, 1953–68, London, Macmillan, 1997; Adam, Heribert, Slabbert, Frederik
van Zyl, and Moodley, Kogila, Comrades in Business: Post-Liberation Politics in South
Africa, International Books, 1998.
41. Murray, Martin, South Africa. Time of Agony, Time of Destiny, Verso, London, 1987;
Gelb, Stephen, South Africa’s Economic Crisis, Cape Town, David Philip, 1991.
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