Place of Thorns. Tshepo Moloi
and Literary Papers and the South African History Archive, for their help in all my enquiries.
I am deeply grateful for permission to use the South African Democracy Education Trust’s interviews. Thanks also to Dr. Twala for allowing me to use some of his interviews. The late Pule “Yster” Moino, Dr. Anthony Bouwer and Ntate Dhlamini, I thank you for unselfishingly making available your reading materials on Kroonstad. I would also like to thank all the residents of Kroonstad who gave me permission to use their phoographs, and in helping to locate them.
Tshegofatso Leeuw, Plantinah Dire and Molefe Mahautsa helped with transcribing and translating the interviews; and Esmeralda Dicks and Malebone Rapoo did a splendid job in translating some of the Afrikaans materials to English. Without your assistance this book would not have come to completion.
Much of the success of this book is the result of the people who read and commented on the manuscript, especially the anonymous readers; and the editors Pat Tucker and Monica Seeber. I am grateful to the Wits University Press for undertaking to publish this book. Roshan Cader and Andrew Joseph helped in steering the process of the publication.
I take this opportunity to thank my family, especially my parents, Stoffel and Edith, for their understanding and unwavering support under trying times. To my brothers, Thabo, Tebogo and Kagiso, thank you for your constant enquiries about the progress of the book. My special thanks are also due to Asania Aphane and our daughter Thato.
Lastly, but not least, I owe a great deal of gratitude to the residents of Kroonstad’s black townships, who this study is about. Their patience, openness, friendship and trust spurred me on. I owe particular thanks to Ntate Ngope Motaung, Andre Kotze at the Moqhaka Municipality Archives, and Ntate Mokete Victor Duma, the former municipal manager of Moqhaka municipality, for granting me permission to use the municipality’s archives. I am particularly grateful to Ntate Motaung for his relentless assistance in accessing these archives. A great deal of gratitude is owing to all my interviewees (their names are listed below). Without your support and cooperation this work would not have been possible. Thank you very much.
Abbreviations and acronyms
| ANC | African National Congress |
| ANCYL | African National Congress Youth League |
| APLA | Azanian People’s Liberation Army |
| Azapo | Azanian People’s Organisation |
| Azasm | Azanian Student Movement |
| BC | Black Consciousness |
| BCM | Black Consciousness Movement |
| Cosas | Congress of the South African Students |
| Cosatu | Congress of South African Trade Unions |
| DET | Department of Education and Training |
| Fawu | Food and Allied Workers’ Union |
| ICU | Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union |
| IFP | Inkatha Freedom Party |
| JC | Junior Certificate |
| Kroonso | Kroonstad Student Organisation |
| Manco | management committee |
| Masac | Maokeng Student Art Club |
| Mayco | Maokeng Youth Congress |
| MCA | Maokeng Civic Association |
| MDM | Mass Democratic Movement |
| MK | Umkhonto we Sizwe |
| NP | National Party |
| OFS | Orange Free State |
| OFSATA | Orange Free State African Teachers Association |
| PAC | Pan Africanist Congress |
| RDP | Reconstruction and Development Programme |
| SACC | South African Council of Churches |
| Samwu | South African Municipal Workers’ Union |
| Sanco | South African National Civic Organisation |
| SANNC | South African Native National Congress |
| SAP | South African Police |
| SASM | South African Students Movement |
| Saso | South African Student Organisation |
| Sayco | South African Youth Congress |
| SOYA | Society of Young Africans |
| SRC | Student Representative Council |
| TRC | Truth and Reconciliation Commission |
| UDF | United Democratic Movement |
| UWC | University of the Western Cape |
| YCW | Young Christian Workers |
Introduction
What is it about an undistinguished, if picturesque, northern Free State town called Kroonstad – or, more accurately, its black residential areas – that makes it a fertile field of study for a social historian?
For one thing, its history. Seventy-five years after it was established in 1855, Kroonstad was recognised as the second-largest town in the then Orange Free State (OFS). The town has two black townships: Maokeng1 (‘place of thorns’ in Sesotho), whose black residents initially came from all over South Africa and from neighbouring countries; and Brentpark, established in the latter half of the 1950s to accommodate the town’s coloured community in line with the requirements of the Group Areas Act.
This book demonstrates that in the 1980s Kroonstad’s black residential areas lagged behind other black residential areas across the country when it came to protest politics. This was mainly because in Maokeng and Brentpark, at least until 1989, there were no pressing socioeconomic grievances – these areas were led by, respectively, the town council and management committee which made every effort to meet the residents’ basic service needs without increasing rent (or, at least, by keeping it at an affordable level).
The study that led to this book concentrates on a politically significant area which has received scant scholarly attention. In fact, in their chapter on activists’ networks and political protest in the Free State, historians Chitja Twala and Jeremy Seekings make an important observation: ‘... overall, political struggles in the Free State did not compare with those in many other parts of the country’.2 Perhaps this has discouraged researchers