2 - From sweetheart to Frankenstein

Summary

By the 1970s, the National Party (NP) maintained its social contract with conservative white labour and commitment to the protection of white working-class interests that had brought it to power in 1948. Yet as the decade brought economic and political turmoil, the NP defied working-class interests by moving to reform the race-based labour dispensation. Going beyond conventional historical explanations, the chapter argues that this shift was not simply a function of the changing nature of the NP’s support base and priorities. Rather, the move towards reform marked important changes in the local political imaginary and mirrored global shifts in the relations between states, labour, and capital in this period. This chapter employs parliamentary debates, media reports and sources from the secretive Afrikaner Broederbond to examine the changing politics surrounding white labour amid the 1970s’ emerging crisis. It demonstrates that the plight and power of white labour were central preoccupations shaping the political elite’s response to the crisis. Observing widespread labour unrest in countries including Britain, they were adamant that trade unions such as the Mineworkers’ Union be made subservient to the ‘national interest’. This saw the NP abandon its long-standing commitment to the protection of white workers.