‘Our Bushes Are the Houses’: People’s War and the Underground during the Insurrectionary Period in the Vaal Triangle, South Africa

Abstract

The insurrectionary period in South Africa from 1984 to 1986 saw thousands of young and old people confronting the apartheid regime in the streets, the workplace and elsewhere. The revolts were largely led by a broad coalition from below. While the African National Congress (ANC) provided ideological and symbolic guidance, its organisational capacity was limited. In the aftermath of the National Consultative Conference in Kabwe, Zambia, in June 1985, the ANC accelerated its effort to promote a people’s war, which regarded the arming and training of domestic units under the guidance of cadres of Umkhonto weSizwe (MK), and the mobilisation of the local population, as essential. Yet, on the ground, many of the militarised youth groups who were fighting the police and soldiers in the name of people’s war remained outside the direct control of the ANC’s leadership. They broadly followed the ideological and strategic programme of the ANC and, in some instances, received weapons and rudimentary military training. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, oral history interviews and archival research, this article traces the experiences and motivations of one such group in the township of Sebokeng to the south of Johannesburg. It focuses on the complex relationships between popular insurgency and the ANC’s call for people’s war and ungovernability. The article argues that a lack of control and support not only gave these units considerable freedom to interpret the ANC’s strategic objectives, but it also created issues of accountability and exposed them to risks due to poor training and discipline.