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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Opposition politics and ideology in the Western Cape |
Author: | Nasson, B. |
Year: | 1990 |
Periodical: | South African Review - SARS |
Issue: | 5 |
Pages: | 91-105 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | South Africa The Cape |
Subjects: | political action political parties |
Abstract: | More than anywhere else in South Africa, the Western Cape possesses an 'exceptionalist' political constituency and culture. An adequate understanding of the nature and development of contemporary resistance politics in the Western Cape must include an appreciation of some of the strong historical, institutional, ideological, and personal relations which have imparted a discrete texture to the Western Cape political terrain. A deep-rooted ideological tradition in the Western Cape has been the Trotskyist Unity Movement, which provided the base for the Cape Action League (CAL), the New Unity Movement (NUM) and Students of Young Azania (Soya). The Charterist or Congress movement, including, besides the Western Cape UDF, such groupings as the South African National Students' Congress (Sansco) and the Western Cape Civic Association (WCCA), emerged only in the 1980s in the Western Cape. Other important constituencies of popular movement and experience are the mainly conservative Western Cape trade union movement, the fairly isolationist Black Consciousness Movement, and the Pan Africanist Congress. A description of these organizations in the 1980s shows a tendency to cling to customary dogma, a traditional propensity for sectarian polemic, and a reluctance to innovate theoretically and strategically around the relationship between autonomous components of the progressive movement. Ref. |