THE FIRST DECADE OF ‘EUROPEAN BEER’ IN APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA: THE STATE, THE BREWERS AND THE DRINKING PUBLIC, 1962–72

Abstract

The study of liquor provides an opportunity for re-examining relations between states and economies. Recent works in European social history have shown that liquor occupies an ambiguous space between economic, social and cultural production while studies of liquor in colonial Africa repeatedly raise the problem of how economic freedoms pertaining to liquor were constructed in relation to the perceived character of persons in society. More specifically, the notion of ‘European liquor’ in colonial discourse suggests that the liquor of colonial masters should be aspired to. ‘European liquor’ was repeatedly contrasted to indigenous brews of lower alcoholic content that were pronounced to be uncivilized and primitive. It implied that drinkers of sorghum beer, palm wine and other beverages fermented from African grains and fruits would progress to the ‘superior’ beverages of their colonial masters. Critically, it assumed that transition to the higher alcoholic content required the discipline of ‘European’ lifestyles. Gradualism, however, often gave way to expediency. Colonial regimes repeatedly set aside fears of the effect of ‘foreign’ liquor on African subjects in the interest of revenue and political gains. The importation of gin by the colonial authority in Ghana provided the regime with revenue for its administration; in colonial Nigeria and elsewhere, liquor was used by the state as a means of winning allies among chiefs.