ABSTRACT
The spectre of revolution has long haunted white South Africa. The most important group on which white South African radicals were represented, that contributed something to generating a public debate around the problems of change in South Africa, was the Study Project of Christianity in Apartheid Society. The reform movement was dominated by a liberal critique of apartheid, inhospitable to a radical critique of ‘racial capitalism‘, and that it became in essence an effort to reform rather than to eliminate apartheid. The various organisations which identified themselves with the black consciousness movement expressly rejected liberalism, including multiracial associations with whites. The second feature of the movement was the militancy of its commitment to liberation, combined with a critique of capitalist institutions. The problems faced by the migrant labour force, locked into the political structures of the homelands and the national states, render them vulnerable to repression and counter-mobilisation.
