History Likker 2 Citichat 2 May 2008

CITICHAT 17/2008 - 2 May 2008


History Likker 2


Liquor – the saga continues!

Just to mention, before picking up on the themes of the past few weeks, the fantastic refurbishment that is being done of the Newtown Hotel by NUMSA in Newtown. I understand that this is going to be a conference centre/meeting place for them and what a great job they are doing of restoring the building. There is something eminently satisfying about the trade union movement developing in Newtown, arguably the starting point of the wrong type of ‘urban renewal’ that took place in Newtown way back 1904. Chipkin (‘Joburg Style’) describes it as urban renewal “whereby black residents were progressively pushed further to the west onto acrid waste sites beyond the townlands, and newly concocted titles replaced old site names erased both from the map and from human consciousness.”

Over the past few weeks we’ve being looking at the themes of the three earlier Citichats, liquor, sex and entertainment, as being joint cornerstones, with gold, in the establishment and growth of the city itself..

What was missing from the story to now is the fact that beer, like gold, was actually here before the appearance of whites. Beer drinking was common throughout African society. Beer was brewed from grain, corn or fruit. The most common drink was made from sorghum or maize – known as utshwala (Nguni) or byalwa (Sotho). The final product, after a brewing period lasting from four to fourteen days, was a thick, pink coloured drink usually with a low alcohol content. Refreshing and rich in vitamins, it was a nourishing drink that the Zulu king Cetshwayo (in a hearing before the Native Laws and Customs Commission) described it as the “food of the Zulus; they drink it as the English drink coffee” – I’m sure he meant tea although maybe the British colonists were more into coffee! Admittedly there were stronger varieties of beer brewed from marula berries or leaves of prickly pears and even from honey. The brewers of beer were traditionally women, Naboth Mokgatle (‘The Autobiography of an Unknown South African’) says, “brewing from the days of my ancestors until today has been the occupation of women. Every woman in my tribe is expected to know how to brew good and nourishing beer.” Drinking beer, on the other hand, was strongly associated with manhood. An old Zulu saying ‘utshwala buqinisa umzimba” means ‘beer strengthens the body’. Paul la Haussse (‘Brewers, Beerhalls and Boycotts’) reflects that “Beer was also important at certain events because it helped to build friendly relations with other people. At weddings the beer party united the family members of marriage partners. Initiation, death and other important stages of life were associated with beer drinking. Beer drinkings played an important role in everyday life in rural communities.”

As with so many aspects related to the indigenous population, the white settlers did not agree! Utterances from a ‘government’ official of the time shows clearly how natural development in one culture can be twisted through the world-view of another - “beer-drinkings are a curse to the country. Little children have as great a craving for the drink as the grown-up people. Women neglect their ordinary duties and leave their huts, to go routing about the country to these beer-drinkings, and they even use the drink to wean their children.” The capitalists were even more critical because they saw beer drinkings as negatively impacting on their profits: “these beer drinkings deprive the colony of its labour supply…” Interesting, when I was in Canada a few years back visiting a wonderful Aboriginal People’s Museum just outside Vancouver, I came across a photograph of a “potlatch”. (Wikipedia: “The potlatch is a festival or ceremony practiced among Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. At these gatherings a family or hereditary leader hosts guests in their family's house and hold a feast for their guests. Celebration of births, rites of passages, weddings, funerals, namings, and honoring of the deceased are some of the many forms the potlatch occurs under.” Under the photograph, taken in 1914, was a caption containing the following comment by the ‘Indian Agent’ of Alert Bay, one William Halliday, made in 1918 “During these gatherings they lose months of time, waste their substance, contract all kinds of diseases and generally unfit themselves for being British subjects in the proper sense of the word.” One wonders if Mr Halliday would have called Cecil John Rhodes a ‘British subject in the proper sense of the word’ after reading Martin Meredith’s book “Diamonds Gold and War – the making of South Africa” Apologies, I wander! .

Citichat 13/2008 traced the establishment of the liquor industry in the old ZAR and how it was boosted dramatically through the mass mining of gold where mine owners “believed that alcohol could help them in their search for workers...when workers spent money on drink, they saved less, many of them forced to work for long periods on the mines before they had enough money to return to their rural homes. So liquor indirectly helped to lengthen periods of migrant labour”’ In just six years, by 1892, there were 552 canteens where workers could buy liquor but, by 1895, the mine owners feared that the liquor industry was ‘destroying their workers’ and thus their profits. By 1897 they had pressurized government to declare a new law - “from now on, no African could buy, sell or drink any kind of liquor on the Witwatersrand” – Prohibition in Johannesburg had begun! As in countries such as the USA where prohibition was applied (the difference of course being that it was applied in democratic fashion, to the whole population!), illegal sales of liquor now soared and enforcement was poor. It wasn’t until the aftermath of the Anglo Boer War that the illicit liquor traders were smashed by the British administration. Interesting that the mine owners were those who originally promoted liquor amongst workers to increase profits and were the same mine owners who later demanded prohibition – not for the good of their workers – but for the same reason in both cases, their profits!

Whilst, in the Transvaal, the answer to the ‘black drinking problem’ was Prohibition, in Natal, in 1908, another form of liquor control was developed which was through the establishment of the “beerhall” – a system whereby the authorities determined to control the entire course of the drink trade from brewing, through sales, and to the actual consumption of beer itself. The Natal Parliament thus passed the ‘Native Beer Act’ whereby only Town Councils could become the brewers and sellers of sorghum beer and beer drinking was confined to beerhalls. In one bit of legislation, the African drink trade was destroyed and a new way was found of exploiting black workers – all profits, which were considerable, would be used to build barracks for workers and contribute to the salaries of the police – all at no cost to the white taxpayer!

But, back to Joeys. By the 1920s tens of thousands of poor people had settled in and around the city drawn by the lure of gold – the rural poor who had lost their land through the Land Act of 1913, the boers who had lost their land in the Anglo Boer War and the migrant workers of which there were nearly 200 000 on the mines at this time, all living in compounds. Non-mine workers found jobs as domestic workers, storemen, washermen and general labourers. The area beyond the city limits to the west of Diagonal Street, known as ‘uitvalgrond’ attracted many of these people. In 1904 an ‘African settlement’ was established at Klipspruit near the main sewerage works to which thousands were forcibly removed whilst between 1905 and 1912 the townships of Sophiatown, Newclare and Alexandra were established. Then, of course, as to be repeated in Hillbrow, Berea, Yeoville, etc between the late ‘70s and ‘90s, owners of property in the inner city were quite prepared to rent land and houses to black tenants. Overcrowding took place by dint of sheer numbers with no available housing alternatives and the ‘rich whites’ moved to Parktown leaving poor people of all races to move into Doornfontein, Jeppe, Ferreirastown, etc. The ‘poor whites’ made money out of selling liquor illegally to their black neighbours. Families struggled to make ends meet and women, in particular, found it difficult to find jobs, so beer brewing and shebeens became an important part of the culture that developed in these areas. This culture became known as ‘Marabi’. Over weekends the ‘slum’ areas attracted thousands of workers who wanted entertainment and relaxation after a hard week’s work. Just as the rich were sipping aperitifs and watching the latest ‘show’ in the many opera and entertainment centres built in the central city area the poor were turning to shebeens for companionship and comfort.

Women started organizing the shebeens on a stokvel basis – every week the woman who got the stokvel pool organized a huge party – members and guests would pay an entrance fee and buy food and drink inside – one of the attractions of Marabi parties was the variety of brews concocted by the ladies! Peter Abrahams says that the stokvel was “…the trade union of the women who dealt in illicit liquor…often a well known ‘skokiaan’ queen was sent to prison without the option of a fine. In such cases the stokvel helped with the home and children till the member came out of jail.” And of course there was music, much, much music! Wilson “King Force” Silgee a saxophone player described the events “Marabi; that was the environment…. you get there, you pay your ten cents, you get your share of whatever concoction there is – and you dance. It used to start Friday night right through to Sunday evening. You get tired, you go home, go and sleep, and come back again, bob a time each time you get in. The piano with the audience making a lot of noise – trying to make some theme out of what is playing” This was the embryo and gestation period for South African jazz!

In 1923, Government passed the ‘Urban Areas Act’ which was planned to segregate white and black and to prevent black persons from buying land in the towns or even from coming to towns. And, war was declared on beer brewers! In 1933 police destroyed 568 000 gallons of beer. The brewers took to less traditional and quicker methods of brewing liquor – so was born skokiaan (either named after a scorpion’s sting or from the Afrikaans skok meaning ‘to shock’); isikilimiqiki (kill-me-quick); quedviki (kill-the-weekend) and se pa ba le masenke (stagger-on-the-fences)

Then, from 1937, the Natal beerhall model was introduced throughout the country – the authorities said it was to make the liquor laws more flexible. Municipalities were given three options (1) having a monopoly on beer making and selling or, (2) providing limited numbers of licences to previous black brewers to make and sell beer or, (3) allowing brewing at home. The municipalities, recognizing the huge profits to be made, generally chose (1). The beer monopoly system was fiercely criticised but as fiercely enforced – municipal beer was more expensive than drinking in shebeens but making beer or drinking outside of beerhalls was a criminal offence. Dr. A. B. Xuma (elected ANC President in 1940) said “When I see hundreds of black women going to jail every Monday, I do not think of them as criminals, I blame the system under which they live. It must be changed…. These laws for “natives only” are unexcelled anywhere in the world in their…manufacture of criminals.”

Profits from beerhalls, which were supposed to be used primarily for housing, could not keep pace with the exploding population particularly during 1939 to 1945 when tens of thousands flocked to Johannesburg to work in the factories producing goods for the war and the army. There were strikes regarding bad living conditions, squatters camps grew as did dissatisfaction with low wages, beerhalls and liquor raids. The beerhalls increasingly were seen as depriving women of earning a living from brewing and also as extorting money from low-paid male workers. Beerhalls were boycotted, often accompanied by violence bred from the anger and frustration against the system. The shebeen, ‘that noble institution’ (Nat Nakasa) although constantly targeted by the police, became the centre of township life. Drum writer, Can Themba, described “The Thirty Nine Steps” in Sophiatown: “Now, that was a great shebeen. It was in Good Street. You walked up a flight of steps, the structure looked dingy as if it would crash down with you any moment. You opened a door and walked into a dazzle of bright electric light, contemporary furniture, and massive Fatty. She was a legend. Gay, friendly, coquettish, always ready to sell you a drink. And that Mama had everything: whisky, brandy, gin, beer, wine - the lot”

The shebeens provided an atmosphere which contrasted with the rigours of daily life, they were warm and hospitable described by Nat Nakasa as ‘hospitable homes’ as compared to the beerhalls with their “high fences which give them the look of cages”. They were also sources of income. Bloke Modisane (Blame Me on History) recalls his mother in Sophiatown who turned “our house into a shebeen, worked ten hours a day brewing and pressing home-brew, called skokiaan and barbeton, and from the proceeds she educated me to high school level and the two girls to primary school level.” With constant raids, people had to find new ways to hide drink – Can Themba wrote “When a plumber’s job was completed, all the shebeen keeper had to do was turn on the hot water-tap for brandy and the cold-water for wine.”

If this sounds amusing and even quite romantic, it should be seen against the background in which it was increasingly taking place. New discriminatory policies and practices, pass law enforcement, residential segregation, segregated and skewed education and overall brutal enforcement that ultimately resulted in the shebeens of places such as Sophiatiown being bulldozed as part of the houses and shops and streets of which the township was comprised.

In 1960 a Commission of Enquiry into Intoxicating Liquor was held the outcome of which was an amendment to the liquor laws allowing wine and spirits to be available to the black population but through government-owned bottle stores. It was widely touted at the time that the major pressure for change came again from the ‘captains of industry’ – this time the producers of wine and spirits who were being denied access to a huge market! Profits from the government liquor stores were to be used predominantly for the provision of housing. Beerhalls would be retained and extended, upgraded. They were and thus became, with the liquor outlets, powerful symbols of repression and exploitation and, following June 1976, became the targets of militant youth. The only beerhall in the inner city that I know of but which, I think, exists as a structure only, is in Kwa Mai Mai, the Zulu market which started in the 1920s but was moved to its current location in 1940 when the beerhall was built.

Twelve years of democracy has not yet resolved the problems associated with liquor in the city. A Provincial publication of a year back highlighted the ‘shebeen problem’ as “a legacy of our apartheid past and cannot be allowed to linger on indefinitely. Unless an end is brought about to the untenable situation it will be impossible to implement a meaningful liquor policy…….the present state of lawlessness and chaos in the industry cannot be allowed to continue.”

From what I hear, it still does but it certainly is a fascinating side to our history.

So, cheers! neil