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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | ''I-Kongilesi Lilizwi ezindi ezindlwini' (Congress' name is household)': politics and class in the Cape Province during the 1920s |
Author: | Limb, Peter |
Year: | 2006 |
Periodical: | Historia: amptelike orgaan |
Volume: | 51 |
Issue: | 1 |
Pages: | 49-85 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | South Africa |
Subjects: | African National Congress (South Africa) black workers 1920-1929 |
Abstract: | There are virtually no comprehensive provincial ANC histories. Historians hesitant to engage with the history of a new ruling political movement, should take political and regional history more seriously and rigorously. This article examines the complex history of politics and labour in general, and the ANC and black workers in particular, in the Cape in the 1920s. ANC leaders in the Cape regarded workers as part of their constituency, primarily in national, and not class terms. The history of this relationship shows both weakness and strength in local ANC commitment to workers. Leaders' ideologies set real limits to their understanding of, and commitment to workers, but they also responded practically to crises impacting on workers. Branches kept the image of an ANC interested in and capable of representing all Africans, including workers, before the people. The ANC was becoming a household term of endearment, embedded in rural and urban African political culture. There was some justification then, for the claim in 1925 that ''I-Kongilesi Lilizwi ezindi ezindlwini' (Congress' name is household)'. Notes, ref., sum. in English and Afrikaans. [Journal abstract] |