Abstract:
By using multiple sources, one is able to see the development of the white working class within Johannesburg. By analyzing the British and Afrikaner history on is able to see the reasons for their differences and the reason for their similarities that played an important role in determining their shared sense of class identity.
The white working class that lived at the beginning of the twentieth century in Johannesburg was mostly British and Afrikaans employment seekers. There are many influential events and factors that led to the development of this class in South African society. Their views of one another, ideologies, political interests and social identity were impacted so massively by these events that they still impact the relationship between these two cultures today. (Lange 2003:1). These circumstantial events played a major role in the formation of the family units within the white working class.
General animosity between these two groups developed at the end of the nineteenth century because of a fierce war in which both sides suffered many casualties. These people depended upon the then booming gold industry for income and livelihood. There were several economic crises in this era which either directly or indirectly affected each and every person in these two respective cultures in some way or another. There were major political shifts in a relatively short period, which added to the magnitude of the instability that people were experiencing.
Relations between the Afrikaans and British nations were not always so tense. If one looks at the case of the Kirby and Nieker family; a British and Afrikaans family respectively, it becomes obvious that Afrikaans and British people existed civilly. With Kirby and Nieker, they were socially intimately. Kirby asked Nieker to be the godfather of his child. Nieker accepted this position in Kirby’s life and even went on to have his own children baptized in the Anglican Church. (Lange 2003:1). Both Nieker and Kirby must have been culturally relative to some degree. One can then deduce that there must have been a decent level of respect and trust between them. Why did this relationship change and how did it start?
The South African war was where the defining animosity developed between the Afrikaners and the British. The South African war was not unlike any other war. The British did, however, have a scorched earth policy and employed the use of concentration camps to detain Boer prisoners of war. “Life in the camps was, to say the least, mean, nasty, brutish, unhealthy, humiliating, and shortened”. (Gay 2001:41). In areas of high resistance, the British would burn and loot farms leaving their occupants homeless. The woman, men and children would be gathered up and inserted into these “camps of refuge” (Gay 2001:40) as the British referred to them.
Some estimates of the number of men, woman and children who died in the camps reached between 18000 and 26000 people. (Le May 1995:118). This instilled a deep level of hatred in the Afrikaner population for the British and ultimately wove a fiber of hatred and resentment of the British in the cultural consciousness of the Afrikaans nation and the Afrikaans family unit.
The rapid industrialization of Johannesburg due to the booming mining industry spawned an influx of Afrikaners and British settlers alike seeking a better standard of living. Afrikaners moved from the rural countryside while the British emigrated from Britain. The existing infrastructure of Johannesburg was unable to handle the volume of people. According to Lange (2001:82), Johannesburg was mostly a tent-city when the masses arrived and as a result of this, the British and Afrikaners become very innovative in dealing with the problem. They setup their own slums in which to live. As a result of suitable accommodation being in short supply, the British and Afrikaner families had to learn to live amongst each other again, which influenced the British and Afrikaans family unit’s perception of one another.
Conditions in the slums were appalling at the best of times. The general environment was unsanitary and a mess. In 1912, a smallpox outbreak occurred within the slums. (Lange 2003:86). This was one of the first times that the Afrikaans and British suffered equally since the South African war. This shared sense of suffering masked the differences and injustices of the past and reaffirmed the similarities that both groups were facing. This ultimately added to the growing feeling of class-consciousness within the white working class.
Johannesburg had been experiencing an economic crisis from 1896 to 1899. The start of the South African war only worsened the affect of the crisis. The scarcity of food, affordable accommodation and high level of unemployment were weighing down on the white working class heavily. (Lange 2003:107). This early economic crisis is significant because it fundamentally changed the social dynamics and family structure within white working class families.
Children were pulled out of school and sent off to work. Woman had also entered the workplace with the aim of alleviating their family’s financial burdens. (Lange 2003:107). This is very relevant to the making of white working class families especially with regards to the more conservative Afrikaans. This is because conservative Afrikaners are very traditional in their ideas of what a woman’s place in a family is. For example, when the patriarch of the family dies, the family farm is normally split up between all the sons while daughters get nothing. This arises out of the belief that woman will get married and have domestic duties that take preference over farm management so therefore they did not need land for themselves. Why did Afrikaner families leave their lifestyle in the countryside for urban employment?
The scorched earth policy employed by the British during the South African war left many Afrikaner families without a means to support themselves. On top of the war, there was also a severe drought. Locusts would then devour whatever produce there was left. (Lange 2003:135). Afrikaners then did not have much of a choice. It was either that they adopt an urban lifestyle and seek employment on the mines or they risk starvation. This is very important in terms the development of white working class families as the family’s entire environment was changed. They were exposed to new stimuli, which inevitable would influence every man, woman and child core values.
It is fair to say that living condition for the white working class was not very satisfactory. Working condition were no better as miners were facing health risks on a daily basis and not being remunerated accordingly for their risk. This was the general state of things from 1898 till the mid 1920’s. (Lange 2003:167). The white working class did not simply accept the status quo as is. Their frustration did boil over at a few points. There was a mine strike in 1913; a rebellion in 1914 and in 1922 there was the Rand strike. (Lange 2003:167). The strike of 1922 is significant to the discussion because according to Lange, it was not only working class men that participated in the strike, woman and children showed their solidarity too.
Lange argues that no significant analysis can be made about the class identity or class-consciousness from the 1922 strike among white workers. I disagree with him because taking into account the South African war which only occurred 22 years earlier, it is clear Afrikaners and British people alike identified themselves as belonging to the same group because of a sense of shared suffering. They had developed their own class-consciousness. That consciousness was so strong that entire family units stood in solidarity before the mining industry and their political leadership.
The Afrikaners that stood side by side with the British in that strike would themselves have fought in the South African war or had grandparents and parents who may have died in the British concentration camps. They simply stood with their previous enemies whom they had killed and been killed by in a single voice and stood up against the mines.
We have seen how a bloody war divided two groups of people. We have also seen how circumstances then reunited them as a result of a shared sense of suffering. The South African war created a social void between these two cultures. The economic situation within Johannesburg then brought these two cultures together once again.
The ruling class was marginalizing the Afrikaners and British alike. Bureaucracy within the government and the political instability only added to the magnitude of the situation within the white working class. (Lange 2003:165). To make matters worse, several economic crises through out the early twentieth century compounded matters. White working class families were put under severe economic pressure and as a result woman sometimes turned to prostitution as a desperate means to provided for their families. (Lange 2003:157).
In conclusion, white working class families developed according to their environmental stresses. These environmental stresses affected men, woman and children. The living conditions of entire families were affected by the lack of affordable accommodation in Johannesburg. The high level of unemployment that resulted from the rural influx took its toll on everyone within the family unit. Children were taken from school and sent to work. Woman would work if they got the chance too. The era was a time when the British settlers and Afrikaners suffered alike. One can say that there was a full-circle completed. Atrocities committed against the Afrikaner nation by the British split these two peoples apart. A common sense of suffering, which eventually manifested in the 1922 strike reunited these two groups under one class.
Bibliography:
· Lange, L. 2003. White, Poor and Angry: White Working Class Families in Johannesburg. Ashgate: Aldershot.
· Gay, P.T. 2001. Modern South Africa. New York: McGraw-Hill.
· Le May, G.H.L. 1995. The Afrikaners. Cambridge: Blackwell.
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