Anti-Colonial Resistance in South Africa and Israel/Palestine: Identity, Nationalism, and Race

245 Pages·2022·23.908 MB·English

by  Ran Greenstein

Anti- Colonial Resistance in
South Africa and Israel/ Palestine
This book provides a comparative historical study of the rise and evolution of
anti- colonial movements in South Africa and Israel/ Palestine. It focuses on the
ways in which major political movements and activists conceptualised their
positions vis-à - vis historical processes of colonial settlement and indigenous
resistance over the last century.
Drawing on a range of primary sources, the author engages with theor-
etical debates involving key actors operating in their own time and space.
Using a comparative framework, the book illustrates common and divergent
patterns of political and ideological contestations and focuses on the rele-
vance of debates about race and class, state and power, ethnicity and nation-
alism. Particular attention is given to South Africa and Israel/P alestine’s links
to global campaigns to undermine foreign domination and internal oppression,
tensions between the quests for national liberation and equality of rights, the
role of dissidents from within the ranks of settler communities, and the various
attempts to consolidate indigenous resistance internally while forging alliances
with other social and political forces on the outside.
This book will be of interest to scholars in the fields of African History,
Middle East History, and African Studies, and to social justice and solidarity
activists globally.
Ran Greenstein is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the
University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.
Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Africa
This series includes in- depth research on aspects of economic, political, cultural
and social history of individual countries as well as broad- reaching analyses of
regional issues.
Themes include social and economic change, colonial experiences, inde-
pendence movements, post- independence governments, globalisation in Africa,
nationalism, gender histories, conflict, the Atlantic Slave trade, the environment,
health and medicine, ethnicity, urbanisation, and neo- colonialism and aid.
Forthcoming titles:
Photography and History in Colonial Southern Africa
Shades of Empire
Lorena Rizzo
Women’s Lived Landscapes of War and Liberation in Mozambique
Bodily Memory and the Gendered Aesthetics of Belonging
Jonna Katto
Rethinking White Societies in Southern Africa
1930s– 1990s
Duncan Money and Danelle Van Zyl- Hermann
Colonialism, Ethnicity and War in Angola
Vasco Martins
Anti- Colonial Resistance in South Africa and Israel/ Palestine
Identity, Nationalism, and Race
Ran Greenstein
For a full list of available titles please visit: www.routledge.com/ Routledge-
Studies- in- the- Modern- History- of- Africa/ book- series/ MHA
Anti- Colonial Resistance
in South Africa and
Israel/ Palestine
Identity, Nationalism, and Race
Ran Greenstein
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Ran Greenstein
The right of Ran Greenstein to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978- 0- 367- 03041- 4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978- 1- 032- 30497- 7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978- 0- 429- 02005- 6 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/ 9780429020056
Typeset in Bembo
by Newgen Publishing UK
newgenprepdf
Contents
1 Introduction 1
2 The Communist Party of South Africa 14
3 The Rise of African Nationalism 35
4 The Palestinian Communist Party, 1919– 1948 58
5 Palestinian- Arab Nationalism before 1948 79
6 South Africa: The Apartheid Era 100
7 Israel/ Palestine Post- 1948: Dispersal and New Beginnings 148
8 Post- 1967: Resistance, Occupation, and Civic Struggle 175
9 Comparisons and Conclusions 226
Index 234

1 I ntroduction
This book examines the South African and the Israeli-P alestinian conflicts from
a comparative perspective, with a focus on political and conceptual challenges
to colonial settlement and rule, posed by radical nationalist and left- wing
movements. It looks at the two cases within the historical context of European
colonialism, imperial expansion, white settlement, indigenous resistance, and
decolonisation campaigns. In so doing it covers political and theoretical debates
on such issues as race and class, power and identity, strategies of domination,
and oppositional social mobilisation. The colonial context provides a historical
setting for the study, but beyond it unfolded global processes of class, identity,
and state formation, which operate in similar though not identical ways under
colonial, non- colonial, and post- colonial conditions.
A comparative strategy for the study of South Africa and Israel/P alestine
may take different forms, and a specific focus is needed for any concrete inves-
tigation. Several possible ways to proceed with the task exist: a giant “compare
and contrast” exercise, in which two cases receive equal attention; the deploy-
ment of one case in order to highlight the specific features of the other (and
vice versa); alternatively, a focus on one case and the use of the other to illus-
trate an overall argument; and, in more partisan than academic vein, the study
could be used to score debating points, as is frequently done with this specific
comparison. Developing political arguments in scholarly work is a legitimate
practice, of course, as long as it does not involve a selection of evidence in order
to lend support to pre- conceived political positions.
Models of historical phenomena, such as colonialism or ethno-n ationalism,
can be useful in setting cases within a global framework, but they rarely have
distinct laws of motion or specific theoretical dynamics, nor do they usually
display a unique configuration of social forces. General colonial models cannot
account for the variety and shifts in the internal dynamics of colonial societies,
across space and time, and models based on one/ two specific cases are inad-
equate as they tend to capture the unique features of such cases with the use
of abstract terminology that does not advance theory. To illustrate the point, let
us look at two models: settler colonialism and Colonialism of a Special Type,
known in South Africa as CST.
DOI: 10.4324/9780429020056-1
2 Introduction
The settler- colonial model identifies a cluster of societies in which colo-
nial rule was combined with large-s cale immigration of European settlers.
Politically, it focuses on resilient forms of domination entrenched by settlers.
Facing resistance from indigenous people, settler- dominated societies were
shaped by political conflicts that provided them with a sense of shared destiny.
Solidarity between indigenous groups, slaves, and other marginalised people
was the counterpart of that process.1 With that said, the extent to which this
model is useful historically and theoretically is less obvious. What is the problem
with settler colonialism as a historical concept?
Its strongest point is also its weakest: it is applicable to a great diversity of
conditions. It can be applied to societies in which settlers overwhelmed the
indigenous population to the point that it became negligible, no more that
2– 3% of the population in the United States of America (USA), Canada, and
Australia. The prospect of reversal of settler domination disappeared there as
a result. In other places – Kenya, Rhodesia, Algeria, Mozambique, and South
Africa – indigenous people remained the bulk of the population and the main
source of labour power. They continued to pose a fundamental challenge to
settler rule for many decades until they managed to overthrow it.
Slavery featured in some cases – the USA and colonial South Africa – but
not in others. European settlers retained legal and political links to the mother
country in Algeria, Kenya, Rhodesia, and Portugal’s African colonies, but they
became independent in the USA, South Africa, Canada, and Australia, at times
as a result of violent intra- colonial conflicts. In some countries most settlers
left the territory after independence – Algeria, Mozambique, Angola, and
Rhodesia – but substantial numbers stayed on in Namibia and South Africa.
And, where they became numerically dominant, settlers consolidated their rule,
marginalised indigenous people, and incorporated them in a qualified manner
into the new polity after they had ceased to pose a demographic threat. Where
indigenous people remained a substantial group, legal- racial distinctions were
usually retained.
Indigenous resistance strategies have differed too: attempts by “natives” to
integrate as individuals on an equal basis in some societies (late colonial South
Africa, for example), maintenance of pre-c olonial identities and modes of
organisation in others, formation of nationalist movements on the new terrain
created by colonial settlement, and alternatively a focus on race based on the
legacy of dispossession and slavery. Envisaging settlers as part of a future society
varied as well, from a total rejection to embracing them as members of the new
society. Diverse geo-h istorical trends coexisted with various degrees of incorp-
oration of urban natives compared to rural populations, and modes of direct and
indirect rule that continued to shape African societies into the post-c olonial
period.2
Settler colonialism, just like colonialism in general, is compatible then
with different demographic ratios, divergent trajectories of indigenous- settler
relations, diverse relations between metropolitan centres and settlers, different
destinies of settlers in the post- colonial period, and social structures that varied
Introduction 3
from reliance on white labour, and indentured immigrants from Europe, India,
and China, to slavery in Africa and its diaspora, and indigenous labour subor-
dination. In brief, settler colonial societies do not move in the same direction –
consolidation of settler rule or, conversely, its demise, as a result of resistance,
incorporation, or exclusion – nor do they exhibit distinct sociopolitical dynamics
over time, in the relations between race and class, for example, ideology and
power, religion and ethnicity, land and labour. In this respect, settler colonialism
cannot be treated as a theoretical model; rather, its numerous manifestations are
themselves in need of theoretical analysis. At best, it may provide a starting point
for substantial historically specific investigations.
While the settler- colonial model is not specific enough, CST is too specific
to serve as a model that extends beyond its historical origins in South Africa.
It emerged through efforts by the South African Communist Party to identify
the unique features of race-b ased rule whereby Europeans exercised domin-
ation from within the country they had settled rather than from outside of it.
Using Marxist concepts, it defined South Africa as a society exhibiting spe-
cific features: shared class interests of foreign and domestic capital in exploiting
native labour, absence of a black bourgeoisie, links of urban black labour to
the countryside. South Africa was regarded as a local manifestation of global
processes of colonial expansion and rule, though with its own unique history.
In a key statement from 1962, discussed in detail in Chapter 6, the Party
defined South Africa under apartheid as “a new type of colonialism”, in which
“the oppressing White nation occupied the same territory as the oppressed
people themselves and lived side by side with them”. Combining the languages
of race, class, and nationalism, it went on to describe “white South Africa” as a
highly developed advanced capitalist state, with “Non- White South Africa” as
its colony, displaying similar characteristics to colonial territories throughout the
African continent. Its system of racial oppression could be overthrown through
a “unified struggle of national liberation and working class movements”, poten-
tially including settlers who had no entrenched interest in white monopoly
capitalist domination, despite being junior partners in the exploitation of the
black population.
In methodological terms, CST was the point of departure for the analysis. It
identified distinctive features of colonial rule in South Africa – internal locus of
domination allied historically with external forces – while taking two further
steps: reaching outward to deploy concepts that were not tied to any specific
location – capitalism, class structure, land, labour relations, and revolution – and
reaching inward to detail the specific ways in which these global concepts were
manifested locally. There was a built- in tension between the two moves: the
more a model reached out to global concepts, the less useful it was in local
analysis. The more detailed it became in addressing local specificities, the less it
could function as a general model.
Is apartheid a more suitable theoretical term then? That is unlikely: it is even
more historically specific than CST and it has no distinct conceptual apparatus.
It emerged in 1948, though building on existing terminology and practices