The failure of the Bantustans or homelands
Verwoerd's
policy of African 'homelands' in the Reserves went beyond the
old-fashioned Nationalist Party doctrine of total social and political
separation between the white master race and the non-whites. Verwoerd
also wished to keep Europeans and Africans apart economically and
territorially. There were five key aspects of his policy.
First, African self-development would take place in separate client-states - Bantu home- lands or Bantustans.
Second, white industries would be set up on the borders of the Bantustans to draw labour from them.
Third, all African residential areas ("black spots') within white areas
would be cleared and African populations consolidated in the
Bantustans.
Fourth, the number of Africans allowed to live in white urban areas would be reduced.
Fifth, whites and non-whites would be completely segregated wherever non- whites were still required in white areas.
Fifth, whites and non-whites would be completely segregated wherever non- whites were still required in white areas.
Sixth, urban Africans would be 'retribalized' by being resettled in
their original ethnic homelands. Verwoerd said that urban Africans
would be allowed to enjoy rights 'only in the Bantustan from which they
spring'.
The 1959 Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act recognized eight
African national units to be the basis of eight independent
self-governing states in the future. The number was later increased to
ten.
The history of the Bantustans since I960 reveals the total failure of
the 'homelands' policy. For a start, the Bantustans are far too small.
Originally, in the nineteenth century and in the early twentieth
century, the land made available to the African Reserves was
deliberately limited so as to force the able-bodied to leave them in
order to find employment in white enterprises. Verwoerd wanted to
'return' millions of Africans to the Reserves without increasing the
amount of land available to them.
The Bantustans in I960 consisted of two hundred or so scattered areas.
By 1980 very little consolidation had taken place- A few small 'white'
areas have been added to Bantustans (i.e. Mafikeng to Bophuthatswana in
September 1980) but in some cases areas which have become economically
viable have been excised from Bantustans (i.e. Richards Bay in
Kwa-Zulu).
In 1954 the Tomlinson Commission staled that the Reserves, given their
small size, their soil erosion and growing aridity, could support just
over two million' people. Yet by 1971 the Bantustans were already
supporting seven million people, as a result partly of natural increase
and partly of the forced removal of 1 820 000 Africans in the decade
I960 to 1970.
Another reason for the failure of the Bantustans is their general poverty. Though, the Africans are over 70 per cent of the population of South Africa (or 80 per cent including the Coloureds), their 'homelands' consist of only 13 per cent of the land.
All the principal known mineral resources, all the major industries, all the cities, all the airfields, main roads and power stations, and nearly all the most productive and well-watered farming land, lie in the 'white' areas of South Africa. After twenty years of so-called 'development' the Bantustans are desperately overcrowded, soil-eroded and lacking in job opportunities.
Another reason for the failure of the Bantustans is their general poverty. Though, the Africans are over 70 per cent of the population of South Africa (or 80 per cent including the Coloureds), their 'homelands' consist of only 13 per cent of the land.
All the principal known mineral resources, all the major industries, all the cities, all the airfields, main roads and power stations, and nearly all the most productive and well-watered farming land, lie in the 'white' areas of South Africa. After twenty years of so-called 'development' the Bantustans are desperately overcrowded, soil-eroded and lacking in job opportunities.
The economies of the Bantustans have hardly been diversified. Limited
financial resources have been spent on their development. Subsistence
production has declined. The average income in the four largest
Bantustans in 1974 was only R84 (97 dollars) a year, in contrast to
figures of 387 dollars for the Ivory Coast and 120 dollars for
Tanzania. In independent Africa only the states of the arid Horn and
the Sahel had lower average incomes. These figures are quite remarkable
considering that the remittances from workers in 'white' areas have
been included.
Under apartheid, tensions ran high between the black population and supporters of apartheid. These black South Africans read a newspaper account of a 1973 clash between police and black miners that resulted in 11 deaths
The priorities of the NP government can be seen in the allocations in the 1975-6 budget, which allotted only R385 million, or 5.9 per cent of the budget, for the Bantustans, while the four provinces, generally rich and developed, received RI 254 million, and the defence budget got R948 million. Corporations like the Bantu Investment Corporation (BIC), the Xhosa Development Corporation and the Bantu Mining Corporation have done very little to develop the Bantustans. These government-owned and white-run corporations have concentrated on buying up existing white-owned enterprises in the bantustans rather than establishing new enterprises, least of all manufacturing enterprises.
Between I960 and 1973 only 9000 jobs were created as a result of the corporations' efforts. From the mid-1970s very few new jobs have been created. Moreover, between 1959 and 1974 Africans received only 18 per cent of loan finance awarded by the BIC, even though African deposits BIC savings banks have exceeded the loans provided to Africans by a considerable margin. Industrialization plans for the Bantustans have largely remained blueprints. Industries inside the Bantustans have been confined to a few show-piece growth centres, employing only a small proportion of the local unemployed.
By 1974, only 13 000 workers were employed in such industries, and most of these workers were very low-paid women. Hardly more successful have been the border industries, set up in white areas just outside the bantustans. Most border industries have been established as near as possible to existing accessible industrial complexes; as a result, workers have come mainly from the urban populations in these complexes, not from the nearby Bantustans.
Under apartheid, tensions ran high between the black population and supporters of apartheid. These black South Africans read a newspaper account of a 1973 clash between police and black miners that resulted in 11 deaths
The priorities of the NP government can be seen in the allocations in the 1975-6 budget, which allotted only R385 million, or 5.9 per cent of the budget, for the Bantustans, while the four provinces, generally rich and developed, received RI 254 million, and the defence budget got R948 million. Corporations like the Bantu Investment Corporation (BIC), the Xhosa Development Corporation and the Bantu Mining Corporation have done very little to develop the Bantustans. These government-owned and white-run corporations have concentrated on buying up existing white-owned enterprises in the bantustans rather than establishing new enterprises, least of all manufacturing enterprises.
Between I960 and 1973 only 9000 jobs were created as a result of the corporations' efforts. From the mid-1970s very few new jobs have been created. Moreover, between 1959 and 1974 Africans received only 18 per cent of loan finance awarded by the BIC, even though African deposits BIC savings banks have exceeded the loans provided to Africans by a considerable margin. Industrialization plans for the Bantustans have largely remained blueprints. Industries inside the Bantustans have been confined to a few show-piece growth centres, employing only a small proportion of the local unemployed.
By 1974, only 13 000 workers were employed in such industries, and most of these workers were very low-paid women. Hardly more successful have been the border industries, set up in white areas just outside the bantustans. Most border industries have been established as near as possible to existing accessible industrial complexes; as a result, workers have come mainly from the urban populations in these complexes, not from the nearby Bantustans.
In any case, few border industries have been created, because
industrialists have been put off by numerous problems such as
inadequate power and water supplies, telecommunications and transport
and housing for workers. Thus the border industries have not even
approached their target of providing enough jobs to raise the general
economic standards of the rural areas. All they have achieved is to
undercut even the low wages for Africans in the white areas, and to
depress the level of African wages throughout South Africa.
Agriculture in the Bantustans declined in the last twenty years. Much
of the 13 per cent of the country allocated as African land is in any
case economically marginal: mountainous, dry, and remote from markets
and advanced transport facilities. The problems of serious soil erosion
in Transkei, Ciskei and Kwa-Zulu and severe aridity in Bophuthatswana
existed before the establishment of Bantustans; removals to the
Bantustans have worsened these problems. Many removals of African
families have been from homes with water, fuel and land for subsistence
crops and grazing, in white areas, to resettlement villages with not
enough water and insufficient land to carry on even a meagre
subsistence farming.
Cosmas Desmond's book, The Discarded People, chronicles among other
things the degrading social effects of the removals policy on the
African people. Families have been ordered to leave even the homes of
their kinsmen for generations and to go to Strange places unknown to
them.
Family life has been broken up as in families "endorsed out" to the
homelands, men have had to leave their families behind while they seek
work in the towns. Wife-substitution, prostitution, alcoholism and
destitution have been some of the common results of the destruction of
family life caused by the removals policy. Moreover, 'Many of the
so-called "towns" in the Bantustans and virtually all the rural
settlements are simply dumping grounds for old people, women and
children whose labour is not needed in the white economy-2
The arrangement of the Bantustans along 'tribal' or ethnic lines is an
attempt to undo the long-term intermingling of the African peoples
throughout history, an intermingling which has taken place not only in
the cities but in many parts of the countryside. The plans to separate
'tribal' groups ignores the fact that most of them have lived
peacefully together for generations.
Indeed, the artificial ethnic classifications ignore the reality that
there are, basically, only two linguistic groups of Africans in South
Africa - Nguni- speakers and Sotho-speakers - who in any case are very
closely related linguistically.
Furthermore, many urban Africans are detribalized, and many are even
'inter-tribal' in terms of marriage and descent. Yet they are still
classified as de jure members of a 'tribe' of a certain Bantustan. The
1970 Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act, which arranged for all Bantu in
South Africa to be given 'citizenship' of a Bantustan, was especially
meaningless to urban Africans.
The Bantustans are allegedly self-governing. Three of them - the
Transkei in 1976, Bophuthatswana in 1977 and Ciskei in 1981 - have been
granted 'independence' by Pretoria. The reality is that the African
people of South Africa have been denied the right to participate in the
election of the parliament which actually rules them. The Bantustan
administrations are notable for their lack of democracy.
The Bantustan assemblies are controlled by majorities of unelected
chiefs. Chief Kaiser Matanzima, Chief (later Prime) Minister of the
Transkei since 1963, never won an electoral majority but was sustained
in power by the chiefs. When the Assembly of the Lebowa Bantustan in
the Transvaal agreed in 1974 to divide itself into an Upper House of
chiefs and Lower House of mainly elected members, the plan was vetoed
by Pretoria. The 'security' legislation of South Africa has been
applied strictly in the Bantustans.
In 1974 the Second Bantu Laws Amendment Act gave Bantustan authorities
the power to ban individuals, organizations and publications. The
bantustans, like the rest of South Africa, make no provision for
African workers' rights to have trade unions, strikes, collective
bargaining and unemployment benefit. Self-rule has meant hardly more
than local government under overall white authority.
National Movements and New States in Africa