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Migrant Labour: Its effects on the South African Family and the South African Child 972 016 463 POL 540 Third World Politics Section 001 Winter 1999 Professor: After Saloojee Reference in APA format. Apartheid did not begin as apartheid but as a divine religious belief of the early Dutch settlers to South Africa in 1652. The Dutch villages doctrine of that time preached that God had elected a chosen people (Giniewski, 1965), which the Dutch believed were themselves. This dogma preached that there should be no unity between the different races, but segregation of the races (Giniewski, 1965) and that Christians whites were given official authority / guardian ship over the natives (Blacks, Indians and Asians) (Giniewski, 1965). This is where the seed of segregation was planted and the unequal development of the races with in south Africa began.
Segregation formed the foundation for what we know now as apartheid and all of its constructs. One of the crucial construct of development of South Africa was the creation of the migrant labor force. This essay will focus on the crucial role the migrant labour system had in the development of the South African economy and its detrimental effects on the South African family and a specially the South African child. To completely understand the impact that migrant labor has had on the African family and child. It must first be understood why the migrant labor force was created, who benefited from it and how it worked. To understand this we must go back to the beginning of colonialism in Africa.
With the arrival of the Dutch settlers the African people of Cape did not known that their lives would be changed forever. With the colonization of South Africa by the first Dutch settlers, also came the need for a cheap labor force for the large-scale white owned agricultural production and later labor within white urban areas. The Dutch believe that there darker skin counterparts was an inferior bread. They saw that natives of South Africa as an excellent source of cheap labor. However, the colonizers soon discovered that the original inhabitants of South Africa had a way of life that sustained them and that they had no wish to enter a money economy as laborers. Both the Dutch and the British settlers realize that they would have to eliminate the very way of life that sustain the Xhosa people.
The extinction of the Xhosa way was accomplished through the Kaffir Wars of 1835 - 1879 (Smith, 1982). In which the land and cattle owned by the Xhosa people were taken from them as a means of forcing them into a system of exploitation by becoming a source of cheap labour to further the economic development of white farm owners (Smith, 1982). This was the creation of what we know now as the migrant labor force. This strategy of building the labor force did not just occur in the Cape but in every region that in South Africa.
This was not to be the end of the development of the white capitalist economy, it was just the beginning. The further development of the migrant labor reserve occurred with the discovery of diamonds in Kimberly in 1867 (Smith, 1982) and gold in Witwaterstand and Transvaal in 1886 (Smith, 1982). Another call was made for increasing the numbers within the labor reserves for this new mine of wealth. To meet this need the final destruction of the indigenous economy (Smith, 1982) occurred in order to achieve the cheap black laborers that were needed in the diamond and gold mines. To ensure that these laborers would not go back to their previous economic base, levies to the poll tax and extensions to hut taxes were enforced by the white ruling class as a strategic way of ensuring that, the natives would stay within the ever growing wage labor economy (Smith, 1982). Decreased production of the mines and the pre-capitalist mode of production (Smith, 1982), created a problem within the labor reserve.
Which had now progressed to having three primary functions. One function of the reserve was a means of cheaply producing a black labor force. Secondly it was a dumping ground for surplus blacks no longer required by the white economy, in urban areas and thirdly as a means of keeping segregation policies between whites and blacks a live and well. With the changing kind of economic direction toward a manufacturing / industrialized nation and the ever emerging capitalist economy. Those in power had to ensure the advancement of their economic base and as the sustainment of the base of their economy the migrant labor force. John Browett in The evolution of unequal development within South Africa also expressed the view of the importance of South Africa in sustaining its capitalist mode of production, their white privilege and power along with the exploitation of black labor as a continued supply of cheap labor in order to continue their level of capital accumulation (Smith, 1982).
The manner in which they ensured their continual economic advancement was through the implementation of the apartheid system. Through the creation of laws that prohibited blacks from living in urban areas which was the primary source of labour. Giving blacks rights only to live in reserves that would require them to migrate to the urban center for work or other areas that provided employment. Which would mean fathers and mothers would have to leave their families behind in order to financially provide for them. The manner in which the migrant labor force was created to function has had a devastated effect on the South African family and the South African child.
This destruction was achieved for the preservation and advancement of the economic, political and position of power that whites held within South Africa (Unecso, 1972). This view has also been expressed by others such as Wilson and Ramphele authors of Children on the Front Line: The impact of apartheid, destabilization and war era on children in southern and South Africa (1989). Wilson and Ramphele viewed migrant labor as a major contributor to the destruction of the African family. They viewed it as the hammer that broke the very last stronghold of the African people not eliminated by colonialism, their families.
Hilda, Berstein the author of lower their triumphs and for their tears woman in apartheid South Africa also shares the view that husbands and wives have become strangers to each other. Who re-acquaints themselves with each other during the annual two weak holiday period. The development of such situations between husbands and wives can clearly be viewed as a result of migrant labor due to the lack of time spent with each other. Time spent together is needed in order to build the bond between husband and wife, parent and child. Berstein (1975) has viewed the migrant labor as making a mockery of family life and also has acknowledged that the breakdown of marriage between South African couples is due to the lack of bonds of loyalty and responsibility to wife and family. Another issue that I believe has also lead to the breakdown of family life in South Africa is the high rate of extra martial affairs between migrant labour couples.
Due to the long periods of time that is spent apart from each other, it has been understood that it is not uncommon for both male and females. To seek the affection that is not available to them from their spouse from another, through an extra martial affair Hilda Bernstein has also found that it is not an unnatural occurrence that both wife and husband have been found to seek small comforts, companionship from others during their extensive periods of time spent apart (1975). In continuing to keep the sustainment of migrant labor it was acknowledged by the lites as to its effect on the African family. However, the political stance of the ruling race within south Africa made it known through the Department of Bantu Administration and Development as to what the official concept of family life of blacks was. The official concept at that time was that blacks and whites would normally live apart for the state of migrant labor that the husband would go visits from time to time. In such a statement it can clearly be shown that the black family life was nothing but trivial element to those in power, that stood in the way of their economic development.
In actuality blacks were seen not as human beings, but as units of labor to be manipulated at will, while wives and children where seen as unnecessary dependents that serves no purpose for the white economy (Bernstein, 1975). The migrant labor system has not only affected the family in the sense of husband and wife, it has also had a drastic effect on the African child. Children have now been found to view their fathers as intruders, as a result of the lack of time spent together (Wilson and Ramphele, 1991). In such an environment where fathers and mothers are away for extensively long periods of time. How is it that children can gain the basic building blocks of life.
Children of migrant workers are deprived of their natural guide in life (Wilson and Ramphele, 1991), their mothers and fathers, as a result of the migrant labour system. The effects that the migrant labour has had on the African child are deep and unyielding. The children of migrant workers have been described as the children of resentment and deprivation. Deprived of food, shelter, love and comfort and as a result have become resentful towards their parents and whites for the life they where dealt so unfairly. Deprived of birth rights, cultural heritage and traditions. They lack discipline, self respect for them selves and others, that they were to receive at the knees of their parents.
Imagine never being praised for your accomplishments, never being comforted when your hurt. Living with an ever constant feeling of no one cares. Dr. Thomas writes that African children with these emotional deprivations and that are surrounded by the environment within the town ships is a product that is both vicious and brutish in nature. One result of the destruction of the African family life. Is the ever increasing incidence of babies having babies.
Which Dr. Thomas has stated is a result of being a child product of the migrant labour system. He states that these children develop brutal values as a result of the migrant labour and the resettlement camps which all together produce something else. This something else that Dr. Thomas is referring to is the psychopathic personality. The psychopathic personality is basically indifferent to the suffering of others, lacking any personal sense of understanding or remorse, unable to form any sort of stable relationships and lacking any understanding of others feelings.
It is parents that carry the guidance that is necessary to ensure that children grow up to be productive members of society. When this guidance is absent in a child s growing years, they do not learn the basic building blocks of love, trusts, respect and honesty. As a result of the lack of parental guidance which is due to migrant labour. African children have been socialized and pushed into adopting violent ways of surviving and in the process, have lost an already lingering sense of right or wrong, for example the psychopathic personality (Wilson &# 038; Ramphele, 1989).
If the very sense of right or wrong is lost by the present and up coming generations of South Africa. South Africa will be headed for a society filled with violence, hate and non respect for human life. Therefor it can clearly be seen that no society built on such values can be a productive one, but a destructive one. As each new generation is infected with the ideals of inferiority, superiority, racism and hate.
South African children will grow into adults armed with the same values that past generations have had as their guiding forces in life. Until these ideals can be purged from the minds of all South Africans, only then will South Africa be truly free and a productive society. Where race is the colour of your skin and not your entitlement to privilege and rights. I do believe that with the elimination of apartheid, segregation will still continue within south Africa. Segregation was not just the dividing of the races, but a destructive belief, that effects can still be seen presently today in its future, its children. Children of migrant workers have been found to be insecure and uncertain in their adult lives (Wilson and Ramphele, 1991).
This has been identified as a result of in adequate parental guidance. Reference Berstein, H. (1975). For their triumphs and for their tears: Women in apartheid south africa. International Defence &# 038; Aid Fund.
Browett, J. (1982). The evolution of unequal development within south Africa: An overview. London: George Allen &# 038; Unwin. Unesco. (1972).
Apartheid. Paris. Wilson, F. &# 038; Ramphele, M. (1989). Children on the front line: The impact pf apartheid, destabilization and warfare on children in southern and south Africa.
New York: Unicef.
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