Document 42 - “Boycott the Dummy Elections: 2 000 Demonstrate AT Mass Rally”, The Torch , National Edition, 1 April 1958

From: South Africa's Radical Tradition, a documentary history, Volume Two 1943 - 1964, by Allison Drew

Document 42 - “Boycott the Dummy Elections: 2 000 Demonstrate AT Mass Rally", The Torch , National Edition, 1 April 1958

HISTORY-MAKING CLIMAX TO ANTI-C.A.D. BOYCOTT CAMPAIGN

The Mass Anti-C.A.D. Boycott Rally filled the old Drill Hall on Sunday, March 30th, and overflowed on to the pavements at the greatest political rally on the franchise in the history of the Coloured people. It is conservatively estimated that at least 2,000 people were present.

At 2.30 p.m. already three-quarters of the 1,100 seats provided were filled. Lorries and buses, specially organised, brought people from various parts of the Peninsula. With them they brought their banners carrying boycott slogans. These were placed s hall, which was already lined with posters and placards. At intervals it the meeting the Secretary, Dr. N. Murison, read telegrams and other of solidarity from 43 organisations or communities in the Cape Province.

PURPOSE OF CAMPAIGN

In his opening address the Chairman, Councillor R.E. Viljoen, said that the purpose of the boycott campaign had been not only to get a boycott of this dummy election and to e Coloured Affairs Department, but to build the Anti-C.A.D. Movement of the in the struggle for full citizenship rights. The campaign, which would after the "elections", was on the basis of the 10-point programme of the Non European Unity Movement.

He said that the Anti-C.A.D. had held over 90 meetings throughout the Union since the opening of the campaign in the Banqueting Hall on February 2nd, and everywhere the boycott had been acclaimed. The meeting that had impressed him most of all, he said, one held in the relatively small township of Heatherdale, Bloemfontein, O.F.S., where a crowded gathering of people who had never had any shadow of a or a vote called upon the people of the Cape not to betray them by accepting dummy representation and taking part in dummy elections.

NOT FOR ANY SECTION

The first speaker, Mr. A. Omar, said that the Anti-C.A.D., as a section of the N.E.U.M, was opposed to dummy representation for any section of the population. 13 He condemned those who accepted dummy representation as being good enough for one section. In particular, he exposed those who are now trying to get the Coloured people to work separate representation but who rejected it for Indians in 1948.

Mr. Ismail Abdurahman, speaking on the C.A.D., ridiculed and rejected the claim Commissioner for Coloured Affairs, I.D. du Plessis, had the so-called "Cape Malays” in his pocket. Mr. Abdurahman said the so-called "Cape Malays" regard themselves as Moslems and a section of the Coloured people. Together with the rest they reject the C.A.D. and dummy representation. He particularly exposed the role of Quislings seeking to divide the people in order to betray.

“ FRAUD LIE, HYPOCRISY, DANGER"

Mr W.P. van Schoor, President of the Teachers' League of South Africa, said that one of the most fundamental tasks of the campaign had been to expose the "fraud, the lie, hypocrisy and the danger" of separate representation. He then dealt with the N.A.D, and C.A.D. in order to dispel any illusions people might still harbour about a-CAD. or separate representation being somehow "different" for Coloured people. Referring to "friends" such as Huddleston and Dadoo who are supporting dummy representation for Coloureds, he said we would have to be firm when dealing with those who betray.

Mr. C.M. Kobus dealt with the history of those who, for 21 years, have claimed to be "fighting from within". He demonstrated how the period of "Native representation" had seen an even greater load of anti-African legislation. It- was; an insult to the intelligence of the Non-Europeans to expect that after 21 years' experience of "separate representation" for Africans they should continue to work the fraud, let alone extend it to the Coloured section.

"I SHALL NOT VOTE UNTIL."

Mr. R.O. Dudley concluded his analysis of the reasons for dummy representation and his exposure of the trickery connected with sending the "best man" as dummies to Parliament, with the enthusiastically received suggestion that every one should pledge that "I shall not vote until every person, every mother and father, sister and brother, son and daughter, has the full franchise on the common roll."

Dealing with the "best men" fraud, Mr. Dudley showed how the dummy "Coloured Reps." cannot vote on such fundamental things as Constitutional changes, and motion of "no confidence" - arid every honest Non-White has no confidence in Herrenvolk Government - or the budget. The place of every honest "best man", he said, is with the people in the struggle.

HEILIGE BELOFTE

The Rev. Dan M. Wessels, coming straight from his duties in connection with Palm Sunday, reminded the gathering of the "heilige belofte" made in the City Hall 15 years ago, that the Anti-C.A.D. Movement would not rest until all had obtained full citizen­ship rights. He said it was a great tribute to the strength of the Anti-C.A.D. Movement's principles that although many so-called "volksleiers" had fallen by the wayside, the Movement was to day stronger than it had ever been.

He said it was not without significance that the Herrenvolk, while declaring an internal political truce over Easter, nevertheless chose the day before Good Friday, the day on which Judas betrayed Christ for thirty pieces of silver, as the day on which the Coloured voters should make a X to sign away the rights of the people. He then affirmed the great democratic principle which has come down to us from America: "No taxation without representation".

A MIGHTY POLITICAL WEAPON

The final speaker, Mr. B. M. Kies, said that no matter how many "slaves, scabs or political scoundrels" the Herrenvolk managed to persuade or seduce into voting for them on April 3rd, the campaign had made it absolutely clear that Herrenvolkism has lost forever all claims it had, or imagined it had, to a Coloured appendix. The Coloured people had matured politically during the past 15 years and the campaign had showed dramatically how they have come to realise themselves as a section of the Non-White oppressed. Every voter knows that it is the "expressed will" of the Coloured people as a whole that the dummy elections be boycotted. Through the correct wielding of the mighty political weapon of the boycott in this dummy election, he continued, the Coloured people could: (1) Smash dummy representation for Coloureds; (2) Give a vital or finishing blow to dummy representation for Africans; (3) Make it doubly difficult for the Herrenvolk to start with dummy representation for Indians; (4) Strike Herrenvolk, already in a difficult internal and external economic and political position, a mighty blow at a time when it could least afford it.

Time was allowed for questions. Mr. Kies quickly dealt these with. In answering two on the Anti-C.A.D. attitude to the treason trial and treason trial candidates, he said that the Anti-C.A.D. holds that anyone accused of a political crime has the right to the best possible defence and to this the Anti-C.A.D. has subscribed and subscribe. But it regarded it as a contemptible and despicable piece of opportunism seek to exploit people's political sympathy for one facing a political trial in order to betray them by working the fascist machinery of political enslavement. The treason candidate was not different from any other, Nat., Sap., or otherwise.

ONE VOICE

Dr. Murison read the resolution -the one used throughout the campaign -. In proposing its adoption, Mr. Y. Abader added a rider repudiating the collaborations Malay" so-called leaders who supported the C.A.D. and dummy representation. Mr. Ajam seconded the resolution. It was carried unanimously and acclaimed.