South Africa: The Peasant's Revolt
South Africa: The Peasant's Revolt is a non-fiction novel by Govan Mbeki, a South African politician, military commander, Communist leader who served as the Secretary of Umkhonto we Sizwe. The book is part of a tradition of engaged writing about social and political unrest that takes place contemporaneously with that unrest.
Quotes
[edit]- If Africans had Chiefs,it was because all human societies have had them at one stage or another. But when a people have developed to a stage which discards chietainship, when their social development contradicts the need for such an institution, then to force it on them is not liberation but enslavement.
- Page 47
- The least that one may expect from eating raw dog’s meat, covered with soot so as to give the impression that it has been grilled, is severe constipation,
- Page 33-35
- a hybrid of direct and indirect rule
- Govan speaking on Bantu authorities system. Page 38 - 42
- coincided with the swelling popular opposition to the Bunga or Council system
- Page 38
- That a special extra allocation of arable land be made to each chief and headman in stabilized or reclaimed areas as a consideration for the additional responsibility and dues devolving to them.
- Page 75
- privileged class of peasantry
- Page 109
- desirable to eliminate lawyers altogether from the machinery of law administration in the reserves
- Page 100
- On the other hand, the peasant believes that by taking advantage of available legal processes, he
delays the evil day when the government will have subdued him alto- gether.’
- Page 100
- though the whip has remained in the hand of the White government, it has been the Chiefs, the new jockeys riding the reserve horse, who have applied the spurs. he Chiefs are now well in the saddle
- Page 109
- The people do not want tribal authorities…. They prefer the government of the time before the tribal authorities. The irst system of government prevented bloodshed. Now through the system of tribal authorities too much blood is shed.
- Page 118-120
- took a large peasant army with him to the thick forests
- Page 119-120
- This cancer in the heart of tribal justice was one of the main reasons for the breakdown of the whole tribal structure, and for the subsequent development of a new system during the Pondo revolt
- Page 119-120
- came on foot and on horseback to chosen spots on the mountains and ridges. his is how the movement became known as “Intaba” (the Mountain), when it was not referred to as “Ikongo” (Congress)
- Page 120