The National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) was an important force for
liberalism
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostility to autocracy, cultural distaste for c ...
and later
radicalism in
South African student
anti-apartheid politics. Its mottos included
non-racialism
Non-racialism, aracialism or antiracialism is a South African ideology rejecting racism and racialism while affirming liberal democratic ideals.
History
Non-racialism became the official state policy of South Africa after April 1994, and it is en ...
and non-sexism.
Early history
NUSAS was founded in 1924
[ under the guidance of Leo Marquard, at a conference at Grey College by members of the ]Student Representative Council
{{Unreferenced, date=July 2014A students' representative council, also known as a students' administrative council, represents student interests in the government of a university, school or other educational institution. Generally the SRC forms par ...
s (SRC) of South African Universities. The union was made up mostly of students from nine white English-language as well as Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...
South African universities. Its aim was to advance the common interests of students and build unity amongst English and Afrikaans students.[ Black membership was considered in 1933 when the ]University of Fort Hare
The University of Fort Hare is a public university in Alice, Eastern Cape, South Africa.
It was a key institution of higher education for Africans from 1916 to 1959 when it offered a Western-style academic education to students from across sub ...
was proposed but rejected.[ Afrikaans-speaking leaders walked out between 1933 with the ]Stellenbosch University
Stellenbosch University ( af, Universiteit Stellenbosch) is a public research university situated in Stellenbosch, a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Stellenbosch is the oldest university in South Africa and the oldest extant ...
leaders leaving in 1936.[ In 1945 the students from "native college" at University of Fort Hare were admitted as members confirming the commitment to non-racialism after a period of indecision.][
Early presidents of the organisation included ]Phillip Tobias
Phillip Vallentine Tobias (14 October 1925 – 7 June 2012) was a South African palaeoanthropologist and Professor Emeritus at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. He was best known for his work at South Africa's hominid fossil ...
elected in 1948, who presided over the organisation's first anti-apartheid campaign. The effort was mounted to resist the racial segregation of South African universities. Ian Robertson, president in 1966, invited Senator Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis Kennedy (November 20, 1925June 6, 1968), also known by his initials RFK and by the nickname Bobby, was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 64th United States Attorney General from January 1961 to September 1964, ...
to address South African Students. Other presidents included, John Didcott
John Mowbray Didcott (1931–1998) was a South African lawyer, judge and a Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa from the court's opening on 14 February 1995 until his death. Didcott was known for his firm support of human rights du ...
, Neville Rubin, Adrian Leftwich
Adrian Leftwich (1940 – 2 April 2013) was a white South African student leader active in the early 1960s in the anti-apartheid struggle. He came to Britain, where he was a prominent academic in the politics department at the University of York.
...
, Jonty Driver
Charles Jonathan Driver, usually known as Jonty Driver, (born 1939) is a South African anti-apartheid activist, former political prisoner, educationalist, poet and writer.
Childhood
"Jonty" Driver was born in Cape Town in 1939, but spent the ...
, Margaret H. Marshall, John Daniel, Paul Pretorius, Charles Nupen, Neville Curtis
Neville Wilson Curtis (born South Africa 16 October 1947; died Tasmania on 15 February 2007) was an anti-apartheid activist and leader of the National Union of South African Students.
Curtis' parents John (Jack) and Joyce were active against apar ...
, Andrew Boraine
Andrew Michael Boraine (born 18 February 1959) is an international expert on economic and urban development and partnering for systems change, who has worked in the development sector in South Africa for more than 41 years. He was a senior of ...
, and Auret van Heerden. Several leaders of the organization were arrested, imprisoned, deported, or banned.
Though the organisation stood for non-violence in its opposition to Apartheid, some former senior members were associated with the first violent anti-apartheid resistance group, the African Resistance Movement
The African Resistance Movement (ARM) was a militant anti-apartheid resistance movement, which operated in South Africa during the early and mid-1960s. It was founded in 1960, as the National Committee of Liberation (NCL), by members of South Af ...
.
Despite its liberal resistance to racially separate organisations in the 1960s, its members, and in particular its leadership, supported the breakaway in 1969, of black student leaders, led by Steve Biko
Bantu Stephen Biko (18 December 1946 – 12 September 1977) was a South African anti-apartheid activist. Ideologically an African nationalist and African socialist, he was at the forefront of a grassroots anti-apartheid campaign known ...
and others, to form the South African Students' Organisation
The South African Students' Organisation (SASO) was a body of black South African university students who resisted apartheid through non-violent political action. The organisation was formed in 1969 under the leadership of Steve Biko and Barney P ...
(SASO), a Black Consciousness Movement
The Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) was a grassroots anti-Apartheid activist movement that emerged in South Africa in the mid-1960s out of the political vacuum created by the jailing and banning of the African National Congress and Pan Afri ...
student grouping.
Turn to radical apartheid opposition politics
The SASO break-away instigated a re-examination of NUSAS' political ideology and its role in the struggle against apartheid
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
. In the early 1970s, NUSAS increasingly became informed by Western Marxist ideas. It turned to organising workers through its Student Wages Commission programme with an initial mandate to run an "investigation into the wages and working conditions of unskilled black university staff" and later to begin organising workers into trade unions. This work is argued to have sparked the emergence of black trade unionism in South Africa that went on to play a seminal role in opposition to apartheid in the 1980s.
Throughout this time many students at so-called "white" universities who supported the organisation because of its anti-apartheid campaigns. Most of the English language universities (Witwatersrand
The Witwatersrand () (locally the Rand or, less commonly, the Reef) is a , north-facing scarp in South Africa. It consists of a hard, erosion-resistant quartzite metamorphic rock, over which several north-flowing rivers form waterfalls, which ...
, University of Cape Town (UCT), Rhodes
Rhodes (; el, Ρόδος , translit=Ródos ) is the largest and the historical capital of the Dodecanese islands of Greece. Administratively, the island forms a separate municipality within the Rhodes regional unit, which is part of the So ...
and University of Natal
The University of Natal was a university in the former South African province Natal which later became KwaZulu-Natal. The University of Natal no longer exists as a distinct legal entity, as it was incorporated into the University of KwaZulu-N ...
) remained affiliated to NUSAS, which by the mid-1970s was the strongest body of white resistance to apartheid.
NUSAS backed the African National Congress
The African National Congress (ANC) is a Social democracy, social-democratic political party in Republic of South Africa, South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when ...
(ANC) in their campaign against repression, and adopted the Freedom Charter
The Freedom Charter was the statement of core principles of the South African Congress Alliance, which consisted of the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies: the South African Indian Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats ...
and involved its members in non-racial political projects in education, the arts and trade union spheres. This confronted Apartheid on the streets and in both the local and international media, infuriating the Nationalist Party Government who cracked down on the rising student revolt on several fronts in the mid-1970s.
By the early 1990s South African students began to see the need to consolidate their efforts to finally rid South Africa of racist controls and to re-focus on education issues. NUSAS was merged with black controlled student movements into a single non-racial progressive student organization, the South African Student Congress
The South African Students Congress (SASCO) is a South African student organisation currently led by Bamanye Matiwane as the organization's President. SASCO was founded in September 1991 at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, Eastern Cape, through t ...
(SASCO), in 1991.
On 2 July 1991, NUSAS dissolved during with the conclusion of its 67th congress.
The NUSAS trial
In 1975, senior NUSAS leaders were arrested under s6 of the Terrorism Act and charged under the Suppression of Communism and Unlawful Organisations Acts. The five accused were Glenn Moss, Charles Nupen, Eddie Webster (a lecturer at Wits University), Cedric de Beer and Karel Tipp. The charges related to a series of political campaigns run by NUSAS, including the 1974 campaign to release all political prisoners, a campaign on the history of opposition politics, the Wages Commissions, as well as support for Black Consciousness
The Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) was a grassroots anti-Apartheid Activism, activist movement that emerged in South Africa in the mid-1960s out of the power vacuum, political vacuum created by the jailing and banning of the African Nationa ...
and the Freedom Charter
The Freedom Charter was the statement of core principles of the South African Congress Alliance, which consisted of the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies: the South African Indian Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats ...
. The state alleged that the five accused had entered into a conspiracy to further the objectives of communism and aims of the African National Congress and South Africa Communist Party.
The prosecution relied on the testimony from Bartholomew Hlapane, a former ANC and Communist Party member who had turned state witness. It was unclear why he was called so the defence team, led by Arthur Chaskalson
Arthur Chaskalson Order of the Baobab, SCOB, (24 November 1931 – 1 December 2012) was President of the Constitutional Court of South Africa from 1994 to 2001 and Chief Justice of South Africa from 2001 to 2005. Chaskalson was a member of the ...
, applied for permission to consult with three ANC leaders serving sentences on Robben Island, Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (; ; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist who served as the President of South Africa, first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1 ...
, Walter Sisulu
Walter Max Ulyate Sisulu (18 May 1912 – 5 May 2003) was a South African anti-apartheid activist and member of the African National Congress (ANC). Between terms as ANC Secretary-General (1949–1954) and ANC Deputy President (1991–1994), h ...
, and Govan Mbeki
Govan Archibald Mvuyelwa Mbeki (9 July 1910 – 30 August 2001) was a South African politician, military commander, Communist leader who served as the Secretary of Umkhonto we Sizwe, at its inception in 1961. He was also the son of Chief Sike ...
. George Bizos
George Bizos ( el, Γιώργος Μπίζος; 14 November 19279 September 2020) was a Greek-South African human rights lawyer who campaigned against apartheid in South Africa. He was noted for representing Nelson Mandela during the Rivonia T ...
, also on the defence team, met with the prisoners and learned not only that they knew about the trial but were willing to testify for the defence to rebut Hlapane's evidence. In the event, the defence team decided not to call the political prisoners to testify because it would raise the profile of the trial and risk the magistrate becoming hostile towards the accused.
In a verdict delivered over two days in December 1976 the five accused were found not guilty on the basis that the state had failed to establish a conspiracy.
Notable alumni
*Phillip V. Tobias
Phillip Vallentine Tobias (14 October 1925 – 7 June 2012) was a South African palaeoanthropologist and Professor Emeritus at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. He was best known for his work at South Africa's hominid fossil ...
- president, 1948
* John Mowbray Didcott - president, 1955-1956
*Roger Jowell
Sir Roger Mark Jowell, CBE (26 March 1942 – 25 December 2011) was a British social statistician and academic. He founded Social and Community Planning Research, now known as the National Centre for Social Research, and the Centre for Comparati ...
*Steve Biko
Bantu Stephen Biko (18 December 1946 – 12 September 1977) was a South African anti-apartheid activist. Ideologically an African nationalist and African socialist, he was at the forefront of a grassroots anti-apartheid campaign known ...
* Neville Colman
* Margaret H. Marshall – president, 1967
*Neville Curtis
Neville Wilson Curtis (born South Africa 16 October 1947; died Tasmania on 15 February 2007) was an anti-apartheid activist and leader of the National Union of South African Students.
Curtis' parents John (Jack) and Joyce were active against apar ...
– president, 1969
*Andrew Boraine
Andrew Michael Boraine (born 18 February 1959) is an international expert on economic and urban development and partnering for systems change, who has worked in the development sector in South Africa for more than 41 years. He was a senior of ...
– president, 1980–1981
*Tony Karon
Tony Karon is a South African-born journalist and former anti-Apartheid activist. He is currently Al Jazeera America's senior online executive producer. He was formerly the Senior Editor at Time Magazine, Time.com.
He is originally from Cape To ...
*Craig Williamson
Craig Michael Williamson (born 1949), is a former officer in the South African Police, who was exposed as a spy and assassin for the Security Branch (South Africa), Security Branch in 1980. Williamson was involved in a series of events involvi ...
References
External links
*Halisi, C. R. D. ''Black Political Thought in the Making of South African Democracy'', Bloomington : Indiana University Press, c1999. xxi, 198 p. ; 24 cm.
National Union of South African Students
* Apartheid - White Resistance
* South African Students Congress
The South African Students Congress (SASCO) is a South African student organisation currently led by Bamanye Matiwane as the organization's President. SASCO was founded in September 1991 at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, Eastern Cape, through ...
* History
* Banning
Interview with Glenn Moss, LRC Oral History Project: 6 August 2008
{{Authority control
Anti-Apartheid organisations
Groups of students' unions
Student political organizations
Student organizations established in 1924
Organizations disestablished in 1991
Defunct student organisations in South Africa