Queering apartheid: The national party's 1987 'gay rights' election campaign in hillbrow

Journal of Southern African Studies

Volumn 35, Issue 4, 2009, Pages 849-863

  Conway, Daniel ^a  

^a LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

APARTHEID; ELECTION; GENDER ISSUE; HOMOSEXUALITY; HUMAN RIGHTS; PARTY POLITICS; POLITICAL HISTORY; RACE;

SOUTH AFRICA;

EID: 75749105824     PISSN: 03057070     EISSN: 14653893     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/03057070903313210     Document Type: Article

References (111)

1. A. Morris, Bleakness and Light: Inner-City Transition in Hillbrow, Johannesburg (Johannesburg, Witwatersrand University Press, 1999), p. 1.
2. R. Lister, 'Sexual Citizenship', in E.F. Isin and B.S. Turner (eds), Handbook of Citizenship Studies (London, Sage, 2002), pp. 191-207.
3. A.R. Wilson, 'The "Neat Concept" of Sexual Citizenship: A Cautionary Tale for Human Rights Discourses', Contemporary Politics, 15, 1 (March 2009), pp. 73-85.
4. L. Berlant and M. Warner, 'Guest Column: What Does Queer Theory Teach Us about X?' PMLA, 110, 3 (May 1995), p. 347.
5. M. Gevisser, 'A Different Fight for Freedom: A History of South African Lesbian and Gay Organisation from the 1950s to the 1990s', in M. Gevisser and E. Cameron (eds), Defiant Desire: Gay and Lesbian Lives in South Africa (London, Routledge, 1995), p. 62.
6. O. Phillips, 'Ten White Men Thirteen Years Later: The Changing Constitution of Masculinities, 1987-2000', in M. van Zyl and M. Steyn (eds), Performing Queer: Shaping Sexualities, 1994-2004 (Roggebaai, Kwela Books, 2005), p. 138.
7. Hooper uses these metaphors to explain the state and elite opinion-formers' attempts to rejuvenate hegemonic masculinity. However, the concept can also be applied to racial and sexual identities. C. Hooper, Manly States: Masculinities, International Relations, and Gender Politics (New York, Columbia University Press, 2001), p. 62.
8. J.K. Puar, 'Mapping US Homonormativities', Gender, Place and Culture, 13, 1 (February 2006), p. 71.
9. S. Herbert, '"Hard Charger" or "Station Queen"? Policing and the Masculinist State', Gender, Place and Culture, 8, 1 (2001), p. 55.
10. K. Du Pisani 'Puritanism Transformed: Afrikaner Masculinities in the Apartheid and Post-Apartheid Period', in R. Morrell (ed.), Changing Men in Southern Africa (Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press, 2001), p. 167.
11. For an extensive discussion of the 1966 'Forest Town Raid' and subsequent moral panic about homosexuality. see chapters in Gevisser and Cameron (eds), Defiant Desire.
12. G.S. Elder, 'The South African Body Politic: Space, Race and Heterosexuality', in H.J. Nast and S. Pile (eds), Places Through the Body (London, Routledge, 1998), pp. 161-2.
13. D. Conway, 'The Masculine State in Crisis: State Response to War Resistance in Apartheid South Africa', Men and Masculinities, 10, 4 (June 2008), pp. 422-39.
14. Gevisser, 'A Different Fight', p. 60.
15. President's Council, Report of the Committee for Social Affairs on the Youth of South Africa (Cape Town, Government Printer, 1987), p. 48.
16. For further discussion, see D. Conway 'Contesting the Masculine State: War Resistance in Apartheid South Africa', in J. Parpart and M. Zalewski (eds), Rethinking the Man Question: Sex, Gender and Violence in International Relations (London, Zed Books, 2008), pp. 127-42.
17. Morris, Bleakness and Light, p. 1.
18. Gevisser, 'A Different Fight', pp. 32, 49.
19. Morris, Bleakness and Light, p. 10
20. Elder, 'South African Body Politic', p. 154.
21. Morris, Bleakness and Light, p. 6
22. Ibid., p. 3
23. Gevisser, 'A Different Fight', p. 42.
24. G. Elder, 'The Grey Dawn of South African Racial Residential Integration', GeoJournal, 22, 3 (November 1990), p. 264.
25. Morris, Bleakness and Light, p. 61.
26. S.P. Rule, 'The Emergence of a Racially Mixed Residential Suburb in Johannesburg: Demise of the Apartheid City?' The Geographical Journal, 155, 2 (July 1989), p. 201.
27. Morris, Bleakness and Light, pp. 16-20.
28. Morris contends that the majority of residents in Hillbrow during this period had stable and well-paid jobs and that coloured and Indian tenants' 'illegal' status enabled landlords to charge high rents: ibid., p. 49. Multiple occupancy of apartments by non-white residents also inflated rental incomes.
29. Ibid., pp. 32-3.
30. Rule, 'Emergence', p. 197.
31. Morris, Bleakness and Light, p. 39
32. Morris, Bleakness and Light, p. 53
33. Elder, 'Grey Dawn', p. 263.
34. D. Welsh, 'The Ideology, Aims, Role and Strategy of the PFP and NRP', in D.J. Van Vuuren et al. (eds), South African Election 1987: Context, Process and Prospect (Pinetown, Owen Burgess Publishers, 1987), p. 98.
35. G. Cawthra, Brutal Force: The Apartheid War Machine (London, International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa, 1986), p. 42.
36. D. Conway, '"Somewhere on the Border - of Credibility": The Cultural Construction and Contestation of 'the Border' in White South African Society', in G. Baines and P. Vale (eds), Beyond the Border War: New Perspectives on Southern Africa's Late-Cold War Conflicts (Pretoria, Unisa Press, 2008), pp. 75-93.
37. P.H. Frankel, Pretoria's Praetorians: Civil-Military Relations in South Africa (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 132.
38. D. Geldenhuys, What Do We Think? A Survey of White Opinion on Foreign Policy Issues (Braamfontein, South African Institute of International Affairs, 1982).
39. Welsh, 'Ideology, Aims, Role', p. 96.
40. D. Van Vuuren et al., 'Introduction: Perspectives on an Election', in Van Vuuren et al. (eds), South African Election 1987, p. 1.
41. C. Charney, 'The National Party: A Class Alliance in Crisis', in W.G. James (ed.), The State of Apartheid (Boulder, Co, Lynne Rienner, 1987), p. 12.
42. M. Mann, 'The Giant Stirs: South African Business in the Age of Reform', in P. Frankel et al. (eds), State, Resistance and Change in South Africa (Johannesburg, Southern Book Publishers, 1988), p. 54.
43. Morris, Bleakness and Light, pp. 42-3.
44. Ibid., p. 64.
45. Ibid., pp. 58-61.
46. Ibid., pp. 58, 44.
47. Elder, 'Grey Dawn', p. 263.
48. Morris, Bleakness and Light, p. 61.
49. 'Key Nats Say Yes, Old Prog Waffles, Schwarz Positive', Exit, April/May 1987. I am grateful to Antony Manion, Archivist of the Gay and Lesbian Archives, University of the Witwatersrand, for sourcing this material.
50. S. Croucher, 'South Africa's Democratisation and the Politics of Gay Liberation', Journal of Southern African Studies, 28, 2 (June 2002), p. 318.
51. Gevisser, 'A Different Fight', p. 48.
52. Henk Botha, cited in Gevisser, 'A Different Fight', p. 62.
53. G. Davidson and R. Nerio, 'Exit: Gay Publishing in South Africa', in Gevisser and Cameron (eds), Defiant Desire, p. 227.
54. Gevisser, 'A Different Fight', p. 56.
55. Croucher, 'South Africa's Democratisation', pp. 318-19.
56. 'Output: The Power of the Cross', Exit, June/July 1987.
57. Davidson, and Nerio, 'Exit', p. 228.
58. D. Fine and J. Nicol, 'The Lavender Lobby: Working for Lesbian and Gay Rights within the Liberation Movement', in Gevisser and Cameron (eds), Defiant Desire, pp. 269-70.
59. Croucher, 'South Africa's Democratisation', p. 319.
60. 'Key Nats say Yes'.
61. Ibid.
62. Ibid.
63. H. Murray, 'Interview: PW Botha', Leadership SA, 2, 3 (Spring 1983), pp. 11-21.
64. 'Gay Rights MP Speaks After Victory', Exit, June/July 1987.
65. 'Editorial: Gay Power Vote', Exit, May/June 1987.
66. 'Spoil Your Paper, Thousands Set To Vote Gay' and 'Here Is Your Election Guide', Exit, May/June 1987.
67. 'Spoil Your Paper'.
68. 'Here is Your Election Guide'.
69. 'Editorial'.
70. 'HNP, CP Say No', Exit, April/May 1987.
71. 'Mother Gaye is Mum if it's Exit', Exit, April/ May 1987.
72. 'Hillbrow Can Be Key for Rights', Exit, May/June 1987.
73. It later transpired that De Beer's victory was illegitimate. Alf Widman unsuccessfully contested the outcome in court immediately after the 1987 election, but a subsequent police investigation resulted in De Beer, his electoral agent and an official in the Department of the Interior being convicted on 90 counts of electoral fraud. The charges related to voters being removed from the electoral roll without their knowledge and 68 voters' addresses being fraudulently changed to make them eligible to vote (some of De Beer's own family fraudulently voted in Hillbrow). However, of the 48 false ballot papers presented to the court, only 24 were votes for the NP; 23 were for the CP and 1 was for the PFP. Therefore, although De Beer had clearly been involved in artificially increasing his vote, it was not conclusively proven he had won because of it. De Beer was sentenced to two years' imprisonment in 1988.
74. See 'MP Will Not Oppose Widman Application', Star, 9 June 1987.
75. 'De Beer Starts Two Year Jail Term', Sunday Times, 19 February 1989.
76. 'How We Nailed Fraud MP', Sunday Times, 4 December 1988.
77. 'Judgement in Hillbrow Fraud Case Reserved', Citizen, 4 October 1988.
78. 'Court Told How MP Juggled Votes', Sunday Times, 19 June 1988.
79. 'Hillbrow MP on Poll Fraud Charges', Citizen, 19 October 1988. I am grateful to Tom Schumann, Librarian of the South African Parliament, for sourcing this information.
80. 'Gay Rights MP Speaks'.
81. P.H. Kapp, 'The Historical Background to and Significance of the May Election', in Van Vuuren et al. (eds), South African Election 1987, p. 22.
82. R. Schrire, Adapt or Die: The End of White Politics in South Africa (New York, Ford Foundation, 1991), p. 95.
83. Welsh, 'Ideology, Aims, Role', p. 96.
84. Cory Library, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, Document 259, Grahamstown Democratic Action Committee (GRADAC) Series, Records of the United Democratic Front, Report of the National Working Committee Conference, 29 and 30 May 1987.
85. Commonwealth Group of Eminent Persons, Mission to South Africa: The Commonwealth Report (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1986), p. 139.
86. S.M. Davis, Apartheid's Rebels: Inside South Africa's Hidden War (New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1988), p. 87.
87. 'Gay Rights MP Speaks'.
88. Ibid.
89. Kapp, 'Historical Background', pp. 23-24.
90. L. Schlemmer, 'Assessment: The 1987 South African Election in the South African Political Process', in Van Vuuren et al. (eds), South African Election 1987, pp. 322-4.
91. Davidson, and Nerio, 'Exit', pp. 228-9
92. 'WGM Stand Clear', Exit, June/July 1987.
93. 'Outrage', Exit, June/July 1987.
94. Ibid.
95. Morris, Bleakness and Light, p. 62.
96. Advertisement, Exit, October 1988.
97. L. Duggan, 'The New Homonormativity: The Sexual Politics of Neoliberalism', in R. Castronovo and D.D. Nelson (eds), Materializing Democracy: Toward a Revitalised Cultural Politics (Durham, NC, Duke University Press, 2002), pp. 175-94.
98. Wilson, 'The "Neat Concept"', p. 79.
99. Advertisement, Exit, June/July 1989.
100. Advertisement, Exit, August/September 1989.
101. Schrire, Adapt or Die, p. 127.
102. Advertisement, Exit, June/July 1989.
103. Morris, Bleakness and Light, p. 332.
104. Ibid., p. 12.
105. Ibid., pp. 61-2.
106. G. Kraak, 'Homosexuality and the South African Left: The Ambiguities of Exile', in N. Hoad et al. (eds), Sex and Politics in South Africa (Cape Town, Double Storey, 2005), p. 123.
107. Rule, 'Emergence', p. 201.
108. Morris, Bleakness and Light, p. 63.
109. Elder, 'Grey Dawn', p. 264.
110. Puar, 'Mapping US Homonormativities', pp. 86, 72.
111. Charney, 'The National Party, 1982-1985', p. 6.