Jack Simons
Jack S: I was born on the first of February, 1907, at a place called Riversdale. On my mother`s side I belong to the original settlers who came out in the 1670-80 period from Holland. My father was a more recent immigrant. I personally combine these different strains.
I matriculated. I went into a lawyer`s office. I was an articled clerk. Then I went to Pretoria, I joined the civil service and while I was there I studied BA law, because they paid me very badly, as all of us were paid badly, and got the degree while I was working. Then I got a scholarship which enabled me to go overseas. I went to the London School of Economics to do a Ph.D. I got that and I came back to do a job in the School for African Studies, teaching African governmental law. And then I was kicked out from that job by Vorster, the minister of justice, in 1964. In sixty-five he barred me from teaching and writing, attending public gatherings, so I left and followed the trail into exile.
I got a fellowship at the University of Manchester. Then I returned to Zambia and took up a job as head of the Department of Social Sciences. I worked there until I resigned in 1975. I had had enough of teaching. And then I became a full-time educator in the ANC. I went out to the camps, then I came back and became a more or less full-time worker for the ANC. When de Klerk made his announcement on February the second, Ray and I on the same day went to the ANC and said, we want to go back home. It took us some time to persuade the African Congress to give us permission; because we are members, we didn`t want to act anarchistically. We wanted to go back with the permission of the ANC and they gave it to us. From the outset, our ambition has been to come back here and take part in what is going on - in the fulfillment of our aims.
Ray A: I was born in Latvia, that is north of Europe. Very cold. My mother had sisters in South Africa. And she had at one time lived in England for five years, so she brought us up with the idea that she wanted very much really, to be back in an English-speaking country. At a young age I became involved in Marxist study-class circles. A comrade of mine who was working with me was arrested. So my mother feared that I would be arrested and she immediately made arrangements for me to go to South Africa. That was in 1929. I got involved right away with the Communist Party here and helped to build unions. The first union I organised was the Commercial and Traders Union.
In 1953 I received a very severe banning order. Despite this I carried on working and helping and organising. I also stood for Parliament in 1954 but when the election results were declared and I went to Parliament, the Special Branch pushed me off the steps. Then I sued them for violence against me, and the money they paid me out paid the costs of the election campaign. I worked and I carried on. Then I got busy doing research for our book Class and Colour that came out in 1968.
In 1965 I left with Jack and went to Manchester. When I came back to Lusaka, I worked for the International Labour Office. And I went on going to the ILO right up and including 1976, representing the South African Congress of Trade Unions, and we were responsible for organising the biggest conference against Apartheid of working people in the whole world. That was in June I973.
South Africa is the most notorious racist country. Race discrimination is by law, by statutory law. On the labour front the South African Industrial Conciliation Act was introduced in I 924. This Industrial Conciliation Act was amended in 1937 and again changed in 1956. That act of fifty-six also introduced job reservation, the colour bar in employment, in the same way it was on the mines. And now with the act of 1956 for commerce, industry, in all places of work, the African workers and Coloureds could be denied the right to work.
The history of the South African labour movement is the fact that they established the Labour Party, and the workers also helped to establish, together with other Marxists, the Communist Party of South Africa. We want a constituent assembly where the constitution should be drafted. In other words the only election that can be in this country is a free, democratic election of all the people: one person one vote. And that is what the trade unions are supporting. This will bring democracy. The people, when they have political power, will also gain economic power.
Jack S: One crowd wants to see a society brought about by non-violent means working towards a Parliament which is representative of all racial groups with votes for all, doing away with these discriminatory laws as an act of faith. There are others here who believe as strongly that Whites should not give up their monopoly of power, and they want to go back to the old days of uninhibited race discrimination. These are represented by people like Boerestaat Konservative Partei, people who take up violence, who are doing what they accuse us of doing. So there is a struggle going on in which the Whites who are backwards in their thinking mobilise or provoke Blacks into violent action. They are principally the Whites, conservative, reactionary, who don`t want to give up power. If you follow the discussion in the newspapers you see the evidence for this. Firstly in their propaganda about the land question, which is now coming to the fore, the removal of the acts of 1930 and 1936, which deprived Africans of land and vested eighty-seven percent of the surface area in the hands of Whites, who are the minority. Now that`s one phalanx of resistance to the surrender of white man`s monopoly, and they control the State. They run the police, the army. They are Afrikaners; very few English-speaking Whites are in command. And they work with Blacks. It is not a struggle of Whites against Blacks; Black and White are found on both sides of this frontier. Blacks working with Whites, Whites working with Blacks, and that makes this such an exciting society. There are forces of what we would regard as progress and there arc forces of reaction, and they are involved in a face-to-face confrontation. And our job is to do what little we can to push the struggle forward along the lines for which we have spent our whole lives as adults and activists.
There are also ambitious Blacks like Buthelezi, who is an emerging nationalist using nationalist sentiments among the Zulu to climb to the top of the political ladder in the same way as Jonas Savimbi in Angola is using the tribal base for his UNITA forces with the same purpose of getting into the top. This is not unknown; it happens all over, in Latin America, the United States, where people make appeals to sections, groups, which feel that they are being deprived and climb onto their backs in achieving political power. That is one of the factors that causes violence. I think Gatsha Buthelezi and his Inkatha movement and his Inkatha police are very potent factors making for violence.
We are now concerned with a major problem, which is to eliminate the old three hundred years of racial distinction. We think that this can be done only through a legislative assembly that enables Blacks and Whites to interact. I am sceptical about a Iegislative assembly anywhere bringing about fundamental changes. This can only be done in a social structure, through a whole network of organizations. The ultimate aim must he a parliamentary system open to all. But it is not enough. My wife agrees with that, I`m sure. As a communist she will never believe that things can be done through a Parliament of any kind without the active support of structures outside.
How do you safeguard against the ANC making similar mistakes to the white Nationalist government when it gains power? You can only do so by instilling into the organizations certain key concepts, guidelines. I was the chairman of the Constitution Committee which drafted those guidelines. And I am not ashamed of the guidelines we drafted. They are a forerunner of the kind of society that we are trying to build. We speak about multiparty systems of government, affirmative action to remove discrimination against, against men. And although I think they are pretty elementary guidelines - they needed to he developed and matured - as a forecast of the thinking of ANC, I think it is quite good. We anticipated what is now taking place.
The collapse of Soviet Communism and of the East African Communist States had a great impact upon me. I came to the conclusion that their attempt to build Communism was premature; that the season of power in I 917 was a mistake - I have got lots of theoretical reasons for this - and that we shouldn`t try to achieve this; it will fail. I believe, however, that we must keep the socialist idea in front of us because capitalism won`t solve the problems. Now, we are continuing to preach the socialist doctrine as has been done in many countries by people who are far removed from power - it is an ideology, an ideal. That`s fair enough. I was brought up as a member of the Church of England. I left it because it didn`t square with my conception of equity and justice. I suppose I could truly say that I now embrace my struggle for peace, justice and stability as a religion-a secular religion, if you like. We all live on hope.
Comrade Jack Simons died in July 1995.
Taken From
South Africa: Blue Portraits. By Reiner Leist, 1993
