Faction fights, student protests, and rebellion: the politics of beer-drinks and bad food in the Transkei, South Africa, 1955-63

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Periodical article

Title:	Faction fights, student protests, and rebellion: the politics of beer-drinks and bad food in the Transkei, South Africa, 1955-63
Author:	Redding, Sean
Year:	2010
Periodical:	African Studies Review (ISSN 1555-2462)
Volume:	53
Issue:	2
Pages:	125-147
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	South Africa Transkei
Subjects:	rebellions youth 1950-1959
External link:	http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/african_studies_review/v053/53.2.redding.pdf
Abstract:	This article examines two cases of conflict from the Transkei region of South Africa. In the first instance in 1955, young men caught up in a stick fight after drinking beer were arrested, tried, and convicted, and they received harsh sentences of six months of hard labour. In the second case in 1961, boys at an elite school in Umtata protested their poor food and lodging arrangements, set fire to the school library, and threatened to kill the headmaster. While they were convicted, their punishment of caning was considered a very light sentence. These two cases illuminate the emerging nature of youthful resistance to the inception of home rule that was later to give rise to the Bantustans, as well as the response by State officials seeking to cope with the enlarging rural opposition to the structures of apartheid. The paradox of the strikingly different sentences is examined and explained. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. [Journal abstract]