BLACK PROTEST IN SOUTH AFRICA'S CRISIS: A COMMENT ON LEGASSICK

Abstract

THE RECENT ARTICLE by Martin Legassick 1 is typical of his work: it is illuminating, thought-provoking and cogently argued but also pervaded by the limitations which derive from his narrow class-based analysis of South Africa. This limitation affects his characterization of Black protest. He argues that it is the Black working class who have provided the bedrock of resistance to the government since 1973, and that the whole protest movement is built around the organization and struggle in the workplace.2 As a corollary, the Black middle class are portrayed as likely to be bought off by the ruling class.3 This argument is a familiar one. It finds its parallel in the claim that Black Consciousness is petit bourgeois and not an ideology concerned with radical economic and political change.4 However I contend that this misrepresents the structural and class base of Black protest. It is this misrepresentation which underlies Legassick's terminological confusion, for when attempting to describe Black protest he was forced to expand its structural base beyond the working class to include 'youth' and 'all the oppressed'.5 We need a broad characterization of the class base of Black protest, and one which can explain nvhy many so-called middle class occupational groups are involved in current township protests. I suggest that a more accurate and useful representation of this structural base is found in Habermas's notion of educated labour. It is a useful characterization because it allows an expansion of the structural base of Black protest while still locating this base in the socio-economic system, a feature which is lost if one utilizes racial or ethnic characterizations, which are the usual contrast to class. According to Habermas6 educated labour are workers in a wide variety of occupations who service the economy as managers, technicians and skilled workers, or service the community as semi-professional people, such as nurses, social workers, teachers, solicitors and doctors. They are characterized by being highly educated and often university trained, but