description: This book, the first of two parts, places black mineworkers into a central determining role in South African history. The success of the mining industries and prosperity of the country have depended upon the efforts and skills of low-paid black workers. They have determined the scope of mining and the technological quality of its operations. It was essentially their sacrifices which made it possible for the mining houses to earn massive profits. The impressive and glamorous infrastructure of South African society which is reflected in the spacious homes of the whites, equipped with swimming pools and saunas, and guarded and serviced by blacks, is derived from those profits. Yet, apart from occasional references to them as 'tribal natives' or 'migrant workers', nameless and without identities except as numbers, black mineworkers have been largely excluded from the history of South Africa. They have not even been credited with a history of their own. This volume is part of the process of rectifying the grotesque omission of blacks from the history of their own society. It shows mineworkers as people struggling against overwhelming odds, without arms, denied property and prevented even from selling their only asset, labour power, freely. Nonetheless, in small ways as individuals and bigger ways collectively they put their imprint on the organisation of the mining industry and the conduct of the government. They force managements to use new, tighter, more sophisticated methods of control and compel governments to dance more effectively to the tune of the mining houses. They never win, nor are they beaten. They simply move from one form of struggle to another. At times, however, the appearance is of defeat and despair. That, indeed, is how it looks as this volume ends, with the defeat of the 1946 Strike, the destruction of the African Mine Workers' Union and the election of the Nationalist Party into government. The authority of the mine owners seems impregnable.
language: English
title: The Techniques of Resistance, 1871-1948
titlecomplete: The Techniques of Resistance, 1871-1948
ratings_count: 1
publisher: Moor P.