This piece is an attempt to demonstrate the inseparable dialogue between the past, present, and future, and how anti-Black racism is continuously and legally embedded within the structures of South Afrikan governance through the existence of taverns in the Black townships of South Afrika.
What will also emerge is how some Black leaders have become the medium through which apartheid and capital sensibilities are constantly rebirthed into the Black community, to the detriment of the social well-being of the community.
Historical background
Part of the strategy under the apartheid government was to extort Black people to finance their own oppression while regulating their beer consumption and social life through the legal establishment of the beer halls. As early as 1897, the alcohol regulation act made it illegal for Black people to drink alcohol as mine bosses feared a negative impact on productivity. But later on Black men, to the exclusion of Black women, were allowed to drink traditional sorghum beer while still being prohibited from drinking “European liquor.” This was allowed provided the sorghum beer was controlled and brewed by the mine bosses because they realized the profitability of alcohol from the Black Afrikan population.
However, in the Cape colony, White farmers implemented the “dop” system (aka tot system) of rewarding farm workers with cheap wine instead of money. This was meant to plunge “Coloureds” into alcoholism as a strategy to get them to accept their deplorable conditions. It is mentioned elsewhere that it was from this inhuman system that the “bergies” (a subsection of homeless people) of the Cape emerged.
The fact that none of these establishments were legally or otherwise instituted in White communities and that the revenue from the monopoly of distribution by the regime would alleviate the tax burden on White urban residents, together with the legal prevention of Blacks from selling (economic exclusion), are indications of the racist and oppressive basis for the establishment of the beer halls and later bottle stores.
The excessive profits from alcohol sales from these establishments were used to finance Bantustan policies and local authorities outside the national states. To indicate the scale of profits, the worst year of 1938 had one Pietermaritzburg city beer hall (Pietermaritz Street Hall) record £1,000 whereas the normal profit per year was £8,000 to £9,000, even as high as £11,000. The first municipality to establish four beer halls and a brewery was in Natal in 1909 following the gazetting of the National Native Beer Act of 1908 as part of the colonial legislative imperative, and by 1942 South Afrika had beer halls in 45 municipalities.
It is important to note that the brewery was only meant to produce sorghum beer for distribution to the beer halls since Black Afrikans were prohibited from drinking “European liquor.” This was a period of controlled resistance because local shebeens (illicit bars or clubs where accessible alcoholic beverages were sold without a license) went ahead with their illegal brewing and selling despite legal restrictions based on the 1927 law that forbade Black people from selling alcohol.
There was a continuous struggle between the state and the “shebeen queens” (the women who ran the shebeens) for access to the trade monopoly and financial returns. Black women were always traditionally tasked to brew sorghum beer, but the added exclusion from the labor market meant that they were forced to rely on selling the same sorghum beer.
Therefore, the eventual transformation of some of the shebeens into modern taverns or the establishment of modern taverns represents an economic victory for Black women and traders in general. But apart from this victory, there were consequences relating to social ills which continue to define the nature of the taverns in Black communities today. So the prevailing and contradictory situation is such that some families are making a living from these taverns, while the community suffers its negative consequences. What could be of greater importance is to accept that taverns are undesirable within any healthy residential area, which is why we do not find them in White ones.
“What could be of greater importance is to realize that taverns are undesirable within any healthy residential area, which is why we do not find them in White ones”
Transitional period
Now, at the time when the apartheid government realized the profitability of alcohol from the Black Afrikan population, it lifted the prohibition of “European liquor” in 1962, thereby distributing it to Black Afrikans in addition to sorghum beer. So the government-owned beer halls and bottle stores and Black people continued to drink themselves deep into apartheid since the profits went back into servicing the system.
Around the 70s, the municipal function of operating the beer halls and bottle stores was assumed by the administration boards across the country. But these boards fell into demise in the 80s and their liquor assets were privatised. Bottle stores in the Bantustans became part of governance as a way to facilitate their acquisition. So although the traditional beer halls have disappeared, they have reappeared in an interesting way through the taverns.
The factors that made the story around the taverns possible are multifaceted and include the growth in demand after lifting the prohibition, the expediency of government administrators, the cartel of the South Afrikan Breweries which disregarded the government laws by directly supplying Black traders with alcohol given the business returns, the scraping of the 1927 law and many more.
Post ’94 situation
In post-apartheid South Afrika, taverns are subject to local municipality by-laws similar to 1909. These are in turn governed by the Liquor Act 59 of 2003 which came into effect in 2004 as administered by the National Liquor Authority housed in the Consumer and Corporate Division of the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC).
This means that the government is structurally still in charge of the beer halls and taverns. The institutional setup is still the same with only legal changes that don’t discriminate according to race. These institutional realities demonstrate the inseparable dialogue between past, present, and future.
This is further demonstrated by the recent public endorsement by the Gauteng province’s premier, Panyaza Lesufi, of a concept of “Taverns of the Future.” His non-negotiable stance was revealed when he stated that “investment is above our individual preferences [and his personal views].” Based on this, one gets a sense that capital and profits are above the lives of Black people.
The tavern regions for development include: Gauteng, North West, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, Western Cape, and the Eastern Cape. Seven of these eight regions are predominantly Black, one region (Western Cape) comprises Blacks (38.8%) and Multiracial (42.1 %), and none of the regions are predominantly White.
Also, it is an indication that the future of Black communities is still imagined even by our misleaders, as continuing along apartheid lines which structurally embedded alcoholism within our communities. This past, present, and future dialogue implies that the negative initial intents are maintained in unwritten ways while we still find no taverns in White residential areas.
Conclusions
The facts emerging from this piece are a validation of the notion that “the more things change the more they stay the same”, or that “the only change is constant.”
Although the individual owners of these taverns are making a living, the consequent and emergent social ills have compromised the quality of social life for Black people. Like the apartheid regime, nothing of the proceeds of alcohol sales from these taverns are used to socially uplift the community but instead, the community continues to drink itself deep into social dysfunctionality.