Early Voices of Protest in Basutoland: The Progressive Association and Lekhotla La Bafo

Abstract

Deliberate British support for the supremacy of the Basotho monarchy and the prerogatives of chieftainship after 1884 assured that those traditional institutions would adapt to changing socioeconomic conditions within a relatively narrow, increasingly rigid format not conducive to popular participation. Despite strong official discouragement of overt challenges to the existing structures of rule, various new channels of popular expression began to emerge as potential alternative outlets for political agitation. The expansion of mission education, cash cropping, the money economy, and labor migration along with other similar innovations unleashed forces for reform which could not be entirely contained and quickly became, in Lord Hailey's words, “much stronger than the Administration realized” (1953: 136). Hailey recognized that the diverse groups generating such social and political pressures included not only the educated, incipient “middle class,” but also certain dissatisfied segments of the chieftainship. Together with most observers, he devoted major attention to the all-important development of the Basutoland National Council, which had evolved in part as a product of colonial inspiration, encouragement, and guidance. However, Hailey, like virtually all other analysts, gave minimal attention to the equally crucial and highly controversial roles of emergent interest aggregations such as the Progressive Association and Lekhotla la Bafo (The Council of Commoners). Nevertheless, these groups established a heritage of political ideas and of interaction with both colonial and chiefly administrations that is vital in understanding the policies, values, and behavior of subsequent Basotho political parties.

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