The Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM) is a

Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian M ...

ist organisation formed in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

in 1943. It had links to the

Workers Party of South Africa The Workers Party of South Africa (WPSA) was the first Trotskyist organisation in South Africa to have a national base. It published a regular newspaper, ''Spark''. The party was founded in 1935 by the majority of the Cape Town-based Lenin Club ...

(WPSA), the first countrywide Trotskyist organisation, and was initially conceived as a broad protest front. It proposed a 10 Point Programme of radical reforms. It stressed

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 ...

, meaning that it rejected race-based organising (and the concept of race itself), unlike the main nationalist groups of the time, was highly critical of the

South African Communist Party The South African Communist Party (SACP) is a communist party in South Africa. It was founded in 1921 as the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), tactically dissolved itself in 1950 in the face of being declared illegal by the governing Na ...

and 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 ...

, and made a principle of non-collaboration with the

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 ...

regime and its allies The movement developed a substantial influence in the

Cape Province The Province of the Cape of Good Hope ( af, Provinsie Kaap die Goeie Hoop), commonly referred to as the Cape Province ( af, Kaapprovinsie) and colloquially as The Cape ( af, Die Kaap), was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequen ...

, including

Pondoland Pondoland or Mpondoland (Xhosa: ''EmaMpondweni''), is a natural region on the South African shores of the Indian Ocean. It is located in the coastal belt of the Eastern Cape province. Its territory is the former Mpondo Kingdom of the Mpondo peopl ...

, and had some role in the 1950-1961 Pondoland peasant revolt, but split in 1957. The faction around

Isaac Bangani Tabata Isaac Bangani Tabata OLG (1909-1990), also known as "I.B" or "Tabby", was a South African political activist, author and orator. A Marxist in the Trotskyist tradition, he was central to the Non-European Unity Movement from its inception in 19 ...

formed a new

African Peoples' Democratic Union of Southern Africa The African Peoples' Democratic Union of Southern Africa (APDUSA) is a Trotskyist political group in South Africa. Formed in 1961, it emerged from the Non-European Unity Movement, and was closely associated with I.B. Tabata, a leading Marxist who ...

(APDUSA) in 1961, and the Unity Movement of South Africa (UMSA) in exile in 1964, and engaged in armed struggle.'Robin Kayser & Mohamed Adhikari, 2004, "Peasant and Proletarian: A History of the African Peoples' Democratic Union of Southern Africa," ''Kleio'', volume 36, number 1, pp. 5-27 The tradition's influence was wider than its membership: for example, notable Marxist

Neville Alexander Neville Edward Alexander (22 October 1936 – 27 August 2012) was a proponent of a multilingual South Africa and a former revolutionary who spent ten years on Robben Island as a fellow-prisoner of Nelson Mandela. Early life Alexander was born ...

, who helped found the Yu Chi Chan Club (YCCC) in 1961, and the National Liberation Front (NLF) in 1962, came from a NEUM / APUDSA background. Until the 1970s, the Unity Movement tradition was arguably the largest Trotskyist current in southern Africa. All of its sectors suffered heavily from 1960s

repression, some ending up on

Robben Island Robben Island ( af, Robbeneiland) is an island in Table Bay, 6.9 kilometres (4.3 mi) west of the coast of Bloubergstrand, north of Cape Town, South Africa. It takes its name from the Dutch word for seals (''robben''), hence the Dutch/Afrik ...

. However, the current survived, both in the form of APDUSA, and the launching of the separate New Unity Movement in 1985. Both wings continue to operate. APDUSA remains active today and publishes the ''APUDUSAN Newsletter'', following in the steps of ''APDUSA Views'' from the 1980s, and ''Unity'' from the 1960s.

References

External links

*APDUSA website and archiv

*APDUSA/ NEUM online repositor

*Baruch Hirson
A Short history of the Non-European Unity – An insider's view
''SA History Online'' *Neville Alexander writings (incomplete

Anti-Apartheid organisations National liberation movements in Africa Organizations established in 1943 Trotskyist organisations in South Africa {{poli-org-stub