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The 1952 Jan Van Riebeeck Tercentenary Festival: Constructing and Contesting Public National History in South Africa1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Ciraj Rassool  and
Leslie Witz
Ciraj Rassool
Affiliation:
University of the Western Cape
Leslie Witz
Affiliation:
University of the Western Cape
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Extract

For all approaches to the South African past the icon of Jan Van Riebeeck looms large. Perspectives supportive of the political project of white domination created and perpetuate the icon as the bearer of civilization to the sub-continent and its source of history. Opponents of racial oppression have portrayed Van Riebeeck as public (history) enemy number one of the South African national past. Van Riebeeck remains the figure around which South Africa's history is made and contested.

But this has not always been the case. Indeed up until the 1950s, Van Riebeeck appeared only in passing in school history texts, and the day of his landing at the Cape was barely commemorated. From the 1950s, however, Van Riebeeck acquired centre stage in South Africa's public history. This was not the result of an Afrikaner Nationalist conspiracy but arose out of an attempt to create a settler nationalist ideology. The means to achieve this was a massive celebration throughout the country of the 300th anniversary of Van Riebeeck's landing. Here was an attempt to display the growing power of the apartheid state and to assert its confidence.

A large festival fair and imaginative historical pageants were pivotal events in establishing the paradigm of a national history and constituting its key elements. The political project of the apartheid state was justified in the festival fair through the juxtaposition of ‘civilization’ and economic progress with ‘primitiveness’ and social ‘backwardness’. The historical pageant in the streets of Cape Town presented a version of South Africa's past that legitimated settler rule.

Just as the Van Riebeeck tercentenary afforded the white ruling bloc an opportunity to construct an ideological hegemony, it was grasped by the Non-European Unity Movement and the African National Congress to launch political campaigns. Through the public mediums of the resistance press and the mass meeting these organizations presented a counter-history of South Africa. These oppositional forms were an integral part of the making of the festival and the Van Riebeeck icon. In the conflict which played itself out in 1952 there was a remarkable consensus about the meaning of Van Riebeeck's landing in 1652. The narrative constructed, both by those seeking to establish apartheid and those who sought to challenge it, represented Van Riebeeck as the spirit of apartheid and the originator of white domination. The ideological frenzy in the centre of Cape Town in 1952 resurrected Van Riebeeck from obscurity and historical amnesia to become the lead actor on South Africa's public history stage.

Type
Reinterpreting South African History
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , November 1993 , pp. 447 - 468
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

2 The Argus, 1 April 1992; Cape Times, 28 April 1992.

3 Cape Times, 27 Feb. 1952; 28 Feb. 1952.

4 The Torch, 9 Oct. 1951.

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8 Official Guide to the Voortrekker Monument Pretoria (Pretoria, n.d.), 12.

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22 Minutes of the first meeting of the Bree Kommittee van die Van Riebeeck Feeskommittee, 10 March 1950, vol. 338, A1646, Donges [CD].

23 Minutes of meeting of the Cape Town Tercentenary Committee, 28 June 1950, vol. 338, A1646, Donges [CD].

24 Agenda for Executive Committee Van Riebeeck Festival Meeting, 16 Oct. 1950, Box 49, Thom [US].

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26 Official Programme of the Van Riebeeck Festival (Cape Town 1952), 135–8Google Scholar; See also Jeppie, M. S., ‘Historical process and the constitution of subjects: I. D. du Plessis and the re-invention of the “Malay”’ (Honours thesis, University of Cape Town, 1987), 77–9.Google Scholar

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35 Official Festival Programme, 53; Greenhalgh, Ephemeral Vistas, 108.

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37 Fair Guide, 53, 55, 59.

38 Cape Times, 8 March 1952.

39 Cape Times, 27 March 1952.

40 Fair Guide, 59.

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42 The Mining Survey, II (March 1952), Transvaal Chamber of Mines (Van Riebeeck Tercentenary Number; miniature edition), 1.

43 Ibid. Inside cover.

44 Transvaal Chamber of Mines, Van Riebeeck Festival Folder, Johannesburg (1952).

45 ‘African Contrast’, Transvaal Chamber of Mines, PRD Series No. 27 (1952), in Van Riebeeck Festival Folder.

46 Heads of Agreement between the Atomic Energy Board of the Union of South Africa and the Combined Development Agency, signed Pretoria, 23 Nov. 1950, file EG1/126, document 1; UK Atomic Energy Authority aide-mémoire on discussions between Authority officials and Mr R. B. Hagart, Anglo-American Corporation deputy chairman and member of the South African Atomic Energy Board, 24 May 1957, file EG1/126, document 178, Public Record Office. Thanks to Dave Fig for the information and references.

47 Die Burger, 3 April 1952.

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50 ‘Reply to criticisms’, W. E. G. Louw Collection [US], 158.Ku.1.Va. (12); Die Burger, 9 April 1952.

51 Rand Daily Mail, 10 July 1951; 11 July 1951.

52 Report for the Festival Fair Committee on the Political Aspect of the Transvaal, 1951, vol. 339, A1646, Donges [CD].

53 Rand Daily Mail, 11 July 1951.

54 Cape Times, 29 March 1952.

55 See numerous letters between J. C. Pauw, Organising Secretary, and H. Thom, as well as letters between A. Pohl and Thom, in which assistance on historical matters is requested and provided, Nov. 1950, Dec. 1950, July 1951, Jan. 1952, May 1952, Thom [US] Box 49.

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58 Official Festival Programme, 100, 123.

59 Official Festival Programme, 122–3; Cape Times, 4 April 1952.

60 Rand Daily Mail, 10 July 1951; II July 1951; Die Burger, 4 April 1952.

61 Official Festival Programme, 117–21.

62 Ibid. 116–17.

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66 Ibid.

67 Official Festival Programme, 85–8, 104–5; The Festival in Pictures, 34–5, inside back cover.

68 See, for example, the ‘Die Transvaler se Van Riebeeck Bylaag’, 4 April 1952.

69 The Torch, 8 Jan. 1952.

70 Dr J. S. Moroka (President-General) and W. M. Sisulu to Prime Minister D. F. Malan, 21 Jan. 1952, Calling for Repeal of Repressive Legislation and Threatening a Defiance Campaign, in Karis, T. and Carter, G., From Protest to Challenge, ii (Stanford, 1973).Google Scholar The six ‘unjust acts’ were the Pass Laws, Stock Limitation, the Suppression of Communism Act of 1950, the Group Areas Act of 1950, the Bantu Authorities Act of 1951 and the Voters Act of 1951.

71 The Torch, 18 Sept., 20 Oct., 9 Oct., 16 Oct., 1951; 19 Feb. 1952; The Agenda van Vergadering van die Sentrale Kommittee, 29 Nov. 1951 provided a report on the Langa meeting: ‘Op n volgende vergadering wat betreklik verteenwoordigend was, in daar met n meerderheid besluit om nie deel to neem nie. [At a subsequent meeting, which was reasonably representative, there was a majority decision not to participate]’ Box 49, Thom [US].

72 The Torch, 18 Sept. 1951; 9 Oct. 1951; The Educational Journal (Oct. 1951).

73 The Torch, 9 Oct. 1951.

74 Ibid.

75 The Torch, 13 and 24 Dec. 1951; 29 Jan. 1952.

76 The Torch, 9 Oct. and 11 Dec. 1951; 12 Feb., 26 Feb. and 18 March 1952; Cape Times, 29 and 31 March 1952.

77 Die Burger, 10 April 1952; Cape Times, 17 March and 1 April 1952.

78 Drum (June 1952).

79 Ibid; The Torch, 8 April 1952.

80 The Torch, 5 Feb. and 18 March 1952.

81 The Torch, 29 April 1952.

82 The Torch, 9 Oct. 1951; 5 Feb. and 1 April 1952.

83 S. M. Molema, ‘Opening Address’, 25 Jan. 1952, in Karis and Carter, From Protest to Challenge, ii, and 477–80; ibid. iv (1977), 94–5.

84 Cape Times, 31 March 1952; The Torch, 4 Nov. 1951, 1 April 1952; See photographs of the platform, the speakers and the crowd, taken and distributed by The Torch in 1952.

85 Cape Times, 7 April 1952; Official Festival Programme, 89.

86 Cape Times, 7 April 1952; Guardian, 10 April 1952; Spark, 11 April 1952.

87 In the context of the historical ferment of resistance to the Van Riebeeck festival, some of these “oppositional” writers went on to publish their histories in book form. Among these are Three Hundred Years by Mnguni (Hosea Jaffe), published by the New Era Fellowship (1952), and The Role of the Missionaries in Conquest by Nosipho Majeke (Dora Taylor), published by the Society of Young Africa (1952). A discussion of these and related works of South African history can be found in Rassool, C., ‘Aspects of Marxist and radical thought and politics in South Africa, 1930–1960’ (M.A. thesis, Northwestern University, 1987)Google Scholar, and Nasson, B., ‘The Unity Movement: its legacy and historical consciousness’, Radical History Review, XLVI–XLVII (1990).Google Scholar See also Saunders, C., The Making of the South African Past: Major Historians on Race and Class (Cape Town, 1988), 134–9.Google Scholar

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91 Witz, L. and Hamilton, C., ‘“Reaping the whirlwind”: The Reader's Digest Illustrated History of South Africa and changing popular perceptions of history’, South African Historical Journal, XXIV (1991), 199.Google Scholar

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93 Cape Argus, 27 Nov. 1968.