THE LEGACY OF NEVILLE ALEXANDER'S CONTRIBUTION TO HUMAN RIGHTS

The Legacy of Neville Alexander's Contribution to Human Rights

Compiled by Manelisi Manellie

Human Rights Day is historically linked to the Sharpeville Massacre which saw the death of 69 Pass Law protesters at the hands of police on 21 March 1960. Although an irremovable scar in the history of South Africa, today it is observed as an official public holiday and a celebration of how far we have come as a country. Author, teacher and lecturer Dr. Neville Alexander witnessed this event from Germany which had prompted his immediate return to South Africa to form a club in support of the armed liberation struggle based on his Marxist beliefs named the Yu Chi Chan Club (‘guerrilla warfare’ in Mandarin). Neville Alexander has etched an indomitable legacy in the University of Cape Town for his anti-capitalist beliefs and advocacy of indigenous language education. During an annual celebration of this revolutionary’s contribution to socialist ideology, we learn about the man behind the legend, the current state of South African politics and its effect on the general culture of South Africa.

The 10^th annual Neville Alexander Commemorative conference was hosted by the University of Cape Town’s School of Education, the PEER Network, CERT UJ, NRF-SARcChl Chair in Community and Adult and Worker’s Education. It took place in the aptly titled Neville Alexander Building at the University of Cape Town on 25 November and 26 November 2022. This event honours socialist and revolutionary, Dr. Neville Alexander and upon attending day two of this two day event, the panel consisted of a number of accomplished academic scholars such as Marcus Solomon, Elizabeth van der Heyden, Professor Crain Soudine, Dr. Sophie Kisting Cairncross, Andile Zulu, Terri Maggott and Kelly Gillespie amongst others. The panel was able to provide insightful and profound anecdotes on their individual experiences with Neville Alexander ranging from personal interactions to life changing encounters with his political, academic and literary work.

Neville Edward Alexander was born the eldest of six children on 22 October 1936 in Cradock, Eastern Cape to a primary school teacher and a carpenter. He moved to Cape Town in order to attend the University of Cape Town in 1953, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in German and History. He co-founded the Cape Peninsula Students’ Union (CPSU), which educated radical political leadership, and after earning a scholarship in Germany he considered himself a Marxist and joined the German Socialist Students’ Union (GSSU). He earned his PhD in German Literature in 1961 and in that same year started teaching at Livingstone High School in Cape Town. In 1963, Alexander was imprisoned in Robben Island for leading revolutionary movements against the apartheid dispensation for which he was charged for conspiracy to commit sabotage. He was released from prison, banned and put on house arrest in 1974, however after his banishment he started work as a part-time lecturer at the University of Cape Town  in the Department of Sociology. Dr. Alexander obtained tremendous achievements before his untimely death in 2012, one of these achievements include his highly acclaimed book, One Azania, One Nation: The National Question in South Africa which was published in 1979 under the pseudonym, No Sizwe.

The commemorative conference recognised Alexander’s work for highlighting the legacy of slavery, the white liberal notion in South Africa and the caste system that is still relevant in South Africa’s current society.  Professor Crain Soudine cited One Azania, One Nation as “a climax of the contextualisation of race in relation to capitalism” and inadvertently tendered an appeal for the exploration of non-racialism versus anti-racism. It was found astonishing that the link between race and capitalism as well as the distinction of seemingly similar concepts such as non-racialism and anti-racism had not yet been personally critiqued in this fashion during recent years. This meant that the face value construct under which politics is generally viewed is a lot broader and nuanced than typically perceived.  Throughout the event other momentous offerings continued to broaden personal perspectives of South Africa’s political landscape. One such offering was that of political writer, Andile Zulu, who framed the post apartheid project as a means to develop a Black elite and further existing capitalist agenda. Zulu positions the governing party’s current policy as “an adoption of a neo-liberal paradigm to guide their economic policy and governance”. He echoed British born Marxist, David Harvey’s analysis of neo-liberalism as a political project to re-establish the conditions for capital accumulation and the restoration of power of economic elites. University of Johannesburg Research Assistant and Council Member at the South African Sociological Association, Terri Maggott contributed ties of the theory of social reproduction to the reality of racial capitalism. Maggott linked the electricity crisis, specifically the national load reductions in Black South African homes as energy racism inflicted by our sole energy supplier, Eskom. The energy crisis has led to substantial opposition to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s management of the loadshedding crisis, which prompted a nationwide gathering considered to be a National Shutdown that took place on Monday, 20 March 2023.

Terri Maggott’s research on social reproduction identifies the privatisation of homes as a prevention of engagement to avoid publics from being and acting in collectives. This observation grippingly relates to the definition of nihilism provided by Andile Zulu when quoting American Philosopher, Cornel West as “a numbing detachment from others and an incredible disregard for human life”. It was also sustained by political and legal anthropologist, Kelly Gillespie’s view of “organised abandonment as a process of profiting White capitalism” and the “demobilisation of the left-progressive”. Dr. Sophie Kisting-Cairncross (Executive Director of the National Institute for Occupational Health) appealed for  caution against problematic uses of “Verwoerdian” racial classifications in academic research and opposed the idea of social reproduction in favour of social formation. She lamented that the act of challenging and sharing ideas to overcome the historic fear of engaging and interpreting the context of our history had died with Dr. Alexander. As a means to encourage organising in the current generation, Dr. Kisting-Cairncross recommends that engagement and organising should begin with an issue that is alive in one’s most immediate space. Kelly Gillespie’s proposition corroborates Dr. Kisting-Cairncross’ suggestion, urging for the renewal of ideas in local organising in order to generate shareable ideas for a renewed link of the local experiment to the big idea. It is probable that such progressive action has the potential to yield positive outcomes in addition to Andile Zulu’s call for the return to class politics. Zulu proclaims that the working class, who forms the majority of the population, has the potential to lead the charge in the change of the ill-fated neo-liberal status quo.

As we observe Human Rights we are obliged to honour the activists that gathered and organised against a repressive and violent regime that evidently still haunts South Africans to this day. In recent times the ubiquitous universal conversation surrounding the effects of capitalism and neo-liberalism on society has been gaining traction. It can be comfortably considered that capitalism and neo-liberalism are inextricably linked to the subject of race relations.  Making it more than justifiable to refer to this phenomena as racial capitalism especially when linking the marginal effect the energy crisis has on Black South African households.

Dr. Neville Alexander’s internationally recognised scholarly achievements, political activism and literary socialist work is incomparably impressive. Though, the value obtained from the conference was the awe-inspiring zeal in which Alexander and many others during the apartheid era was able to organise groups in order fight a brutal and unfair system. The dozens of human beings who were senselessly murdered in Sharpeville are forever to remain in the historical and cultural zeitgeist of South African society and never to be forgotten. It is debatable that there have been incidents in recent South African history that have been considered to echo the events of the Sharpeville Massacre. Even though the severity levels are worlds apart, the subtle discouragement of social engagement in this day in age does eerily resemble the political era and circumstance of the Sharpeville massacre victims.