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- Convenors:
-
Duncan Money
(African Studies Centre Leiden)
Rory Pilossof (University of the Free State)
Danelle van Zyl-Hermann (University of Basel)
Send message to Convenors
- Stream:
- History
- Location:
- David Hume, LG.09
- Sessions:
- Thursday 13 June, -, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel aims to add to the rich literature on decolonisation in the region by inviting papers on new or altered social and cultural practices, political imagineries and social conflict.
Long Abstract:
In Southern Africa the second half of the twentieth century was a time of significant change and turmoil. The processes of political change varied, with the dramatic collapse of colonial rule in Mozambique and Angola, while white minority regimes in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Namibia obstinately resisted majority rule in the face of growing opposition from nationalist liberation movements. While the power struggles shaping these developments were nationally and regionally grounded, they also represented complicated local inflections of Cold War politics and the consequences of the global economic recession in the early 1970s. Scholarly understandings of the late decolonisation period in the region are rich and well established. Much of this work focuses on key political figures and movements; the wars and contestation of liberation; the economic changes (or lack thereof) brought about by decolonisation; the social changes wrought by these events and their impact on people's lives.
This panel seeks to draw together new research offering alternative histories of decolonisation and liberation in Southern Africa - not to displace the established narratives, but to cast new light on the contestations of this period. It invites papers dealing with - but not confined to - shifts in cultural formations; new or altered social practices; emerging conflicts within or between ethnic, religions, or other social groups; and changing political imaginaries in the region which demonstrate new interpretations of, or unorthodox avenues for exploring the transformations and contestations characterising the region during this period.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 13 June, 2019, -David Morton (University of British Columbia)
Paper short abstract:
This paper is about Mozambique's appropriation of funeral services in July 1975, one of the more anomalous nationalizations of the period. The episode helps reveal the nature of policymaking during the very earliest days of independence, and the role that the capital city played as context.
Paper long abstract:
In July 1975, shortly after Mozambique's independence, FRELIMO nationalized all health care, schooling, and legal counsel, so that all Mozambicans would have equal access to these key services - at least theoretically. The fourth, seemingly anomalous sector to be nationalized that month: funeral services. The making of coffins and caskets had been a particularly unsavoury business in late-colonial Lourenço Marques. Corpses were graded by class - that is, by the ability of families to pay for more showy burials. During the very first cabinet meetings held in independent Mozambique, the issue came up almost by chance, and was immediately met with disgust. The rumor that doctors were hastening patient deaths to give business to certain funeral operators settled the matter. There would be no "commercialization of death." The state would make the coffins and caskets itself. The funeral businesses had a mostly European clientele, but the policy inadvertently addressed what for many African residents had been one of the great humiliations of urban life: the inability to pay for a dignified burial. This paper is based largely on interviews with the former minister of health and with the Araújo family, who ran the city's first African-owned funeral services business. The episode helps reveal the nature of government decision-making during the very earliest days of independence, and the role that Lourenço Marques played as context: how for neophyte ministers, learning to wield the levers of state was also a process of discovery, and rediscovery, about life in the capital city.
Danelle van Zyl-Hermann (University of Basel)
Paper short abstract:
Existing scholarship on 1970s South Africa focuses either on state reform and repression from above or black resistance from below. In contrast, this paper examines the position of white workers in the apartheid political imaginary, revealing important local shifts which mirror global changes.
Paper long abstract:
Globally, the 1970s marked an emerging crisis of capital accumulation; in South Africa, this was compounded by the eruption of African labour unrest from 1973. The ruling National Party's reformist responses to these pressures have been identified as efforts to modernise apartheid and gain control over the elements challenging it in order to safeguard white minority rule. Existing scholarship on the late apartheid period therefore typically concentrates on high politics and the apartheid state, or, on the crescendo of black resistance and the liberation struggle. This paper takes an alternative approach by investigating the changing position of white workers in the apartheid political imaginary of this period. Employing parliamentary debates, media reports and internal documentation from the secretive Afrikaner Broederbond, it demonstrates that the plight and power of white labour were central preoccupations shaping the political elite's response to the unfolding crisis of the 1970s. Observing widespread labour unrest in countries like Britain, sections of the local elite were adamant that white unions be made subservient to the 'national interest'. This signalled significant shifts in NP priorities and apartheid ideology, shifts synchronous with global changes in state-labour relations amid moves towards neoliberal policy alternatives. This offers insight into the reversal of white workers' incorporation into the racial state, detailed earlier in the century, and reveals the dual nature of the apartheid state at this historical juncture: a colonial government attempting to forestall black politicisation and an advanced capitalist regime struggling with a powerful white labour movement.
Justin Pearce (Stellenbosch University)
Paper short abstract:
The memory of the strand of Central Mozambican nationalism represented by Uria Simango echoes in politics today.
Paper long abstract:
The multiple origins of Frelimo in regional proto-nationalist groups are well documented, as is the leadership crisis that followed the murder in 1969 of Eduardo Mondlane. In contrast to Angola or Kenya, for example, where the lineage of today's opposition parties can be traced directly to nationalist endeavours, Mozambique's opposition parties cannot claim direct organisational continuity with nationalist groups of the 1960s. Nevertheless, this paper argues that claims on the legacy of nationalist endeavours that were excluded from Frelimo after 1969 remain an important political resource for opposition parties in Mozambique today. I consider in particular the remembering of Uria Simango and the strand of Ndau nationalism that he is seen to represent.
Drawing on interviews conducted in Sofala province and opinion articles published in the Mozambican press, I show how the legacy of Simango is invoked variously by supporters of Renamo and of the MDM, the latter founded by Simango's son Daviz Simango, but also by those who express dissatisfaction with the status quo without favouring any particular opposition party. This legacy was an important resource for Renamo in justifying its return to violence between 2013 and 2016. I show in particular how ideas from the 1960s are recast and invoked selectively in order to appear consistent with the liberal democratic positions taken in the official discourses of Renamo and the MDM.
Schalk van der Merwe (Stellenbosch University) Danelle van Zyl-Hermann (University of Basel)
Paper short abstract:
During the apartheid era, the cultural expressions of the Afrikaner working class were suppressed to accommodate the sensitivities of the cultural elite. In the post-apartheid era, this taboo subject has often been invoked by middle class artists, leading to the re-imagining of Afrikaner class.
Paper long abstract:
It is often problematic to consider African popular culture in class terms (Barber 2018). However, South Africa's industrialisation around the turn of the twentieth century saw the distinct emergence - especially in the mining centre of Johannesburg - of black and white urban working-class communities. Living in multiracial and multi-ethnic communities were white Afrikaans-speaking workers who developed distinct cultural practices such as the enjoyment of boere-music and dog racing, clearly discernible from the tastes expressed by Afrikaners of higher social standing (Grundlingh 2003, 20014; Van der Merwe 2017). From the 1930s onwards, Afrikaner culture became a highly politicised space in service of an emergent, racially exclusive Afrikaner nationalist ideology which was acutely class sensitive. The lower social strata became a source of embarrassment and during the subsequent apartheid era, cultural elites employed various means to subdue, censor and mute contrary popular culture and creative works which emerged from or drew on the realities of working-class Afrikaner life.
The end of apartheid disrupted this process, and Afrikaner working-class culture re-emerged from its historical silence - but in a surprising guise. Serving as the inspiration for various popular works - from hiphop and rap to film, literature and photography - it was now often caricatured, or portrayed as somewhat exotic, deviant or even dangerous. Moreover, these expressions often emanated not from working-class actors themselves, but middle-class artists. This paper seeks to illuminate the invocation of a once taboo subject against the unravelling of white Afrikaner hegemony in the postcolony, casting new light on the contestations and social relations of this period.
Rory Pilossof (University of the Free State)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the arrival of L Ron Hubbard (the founder of Scientology), the growth of the church and the conflict with the state in the context of decolonisation, the changing geo-political landscape and civil war in Southern Rhodesia
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores the arrival of L Ron Hubbard (the founder of Scientology), the growth of the church and the conflict with the state in the context of decolonisation, the changing geo-political landscape and civil war in Southern Rhodesia. Hubbard arrived in Rhodesia on 7 April 1966, but was to for only three months, as he was forced to leave in July 1966 when his temporary visitors permit was not extended. However, his short stay was noteworthy on several levels. Firstly, the timing of his arrival, just months after the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI), is itself of interest. The Rhodesian state initially sought to use Hubbard's arrival as a propaganda coup. Secondly, Hubbard's actions while in Salisbury are worth a closer look. While there, he also tried to ingratiate himself with political elite, but these efforts failed resulting in the refused visa extension. Thirdly, Hubbard's arrival in Rhodesia propagated a rise in the number of Scientologists in the country. In December 1968, the state sought to try and curtail the growth of the movement by banning the importation of any Scientology material into the country. This led to a number of high-level court cases, and eventually an overturning of the ban. The case of Scientology makes fascinating reading. The growth of scientology, the banning and the subsequent court cases highlight the potent mix of religion, race, and politics at time of uncertainty.
Arianna Lissoni (University of the Witwatersrand)
Paper short abstract:
This paper analyses the debates taking place within the liberation movement in exile during the 1970s over the question of participation in bantustan politics and the problems, as well as the opportunities, they posed, especially in terms of underground organisation and waging armed struggle.
Paper long abstract:
After the imposition of Bantu Authorities in South Africa's rural 'reserves', the apartheid state continued to roll out its 'homeland' policy, with self-government and, in some cases, 'independence' being granted to the bantustans over the next decades. The liberation movement exposed and rejected these formations as political fraud. Yet, the creation and the existence of the bantustans simultaneously engendered serious discussions within its ranks about their political implications for the national liberation struggle. This paper analyses the debates taking place within the ANC and SACP in exile during the 1970s over the question of participation in bantustan politics and the problems, as well as the opportunities, they posed, especially in terms of underground organisation and waging armed struggle. These strategic debates may shed new light on the intensification of the armed struggle and the resurgence of mass struggle during the following decade.
Heike Becker (University of the Western Cape)
Paper short abstract:
The paper revisits social and political developments in Namibia in the 1980s that led rise to remarkable alternative politics of the decolonisation struggle, which helped significantly to undermine South African rule over Namibia.
Paper long abstract:
In the 1980s, social and political developments in Windhoek and other towns of central and southern Namibia led rise to remarkable alternative politics of the decolonisation struggle, which helped significantly to undermine South African rule over Namibia. From 1983 onwards when residents protested against the price of electricity and formed street committees, a popular revolt against poor living conditions and the oppression under apartheid colonialism was staged by residents' associations, workers' and students' movements. They took up people's day-to-day concerns under the conditions of worsening poverty after the (partial) abolition of influx control laws led to accelerated urbanization, and an economic recession hit the economy towards the end of the 1970s. The popular movements together with the increasingly politicized stance of the mainstream churches filled the political vacuum left by the de-facto dissolution of SWAPO inside Namibia. The activism of students, workers, women and township resident associations became momentous in the internal anti-apartheid struggle, much to the irritation of SWAPO, which was suspicious of any efforts beyond its control.
Namibian civil society proved not very robust after independence. This was owed, partly, to the history of tensions between SWAPO and the community organisations in the 1980s. In the light of a new generation of Namibian activists who have been forcefully asking penetrating questions and engaging in collective action over the past few years, the history of the popular urban revolt in the 1980s has become particularly significant again.
Brian Ngwenya (University of Basel)
Paper short abstract:
Using Kuyedza Club as a case, the study explores dynamics of identity politics in colonial Zimbabwe. It draws on oral interviews and archival evidence to emphasise conflicts and connections between African and European women, the colonial state and variations over time and space in decolonisation.
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores the history of Kuyedza African Police Wives' Club in colonial Zimbabwe from 1958 to 1980. Drawing mainly on oral interviews with wives of former African colonial policemen and collaborated by archival evidence, the case study approach to the home crafts movement employed here places at its core the identity and cultural politics which permeated the violent struggle for state power in the decolonisation process particularly of settler colonial states in Africa. Existing research on colonial home craft movements has, until recently, largely been written from the perspectives of sociology and anthropology. Consequently, issues of gender, power, race, class and other interpersonal dynamics-what women thought and did about other women- loom large both in interpretation and analysis. Although making immense contributions to debates on the working of domesticity in private and public colonial spaces, these accounts either under-state or over-generalise the very potent connections and resultant disruptions of the identity politics that permeated the processes of Zimbabwe's decolonisation. By focusing on a single case, I hope to both supplement and interrogate existing narratives through exploring how these identities were formulated, sustained and differed across time, space and various sections of the colonial population. This analytical approach does not only complicate our understanding of the violence associated with the decolonisation of settler colonies, but is also a way to think of the attendant conflicts and compromises between actors during this transitional period and their contribution to the (un)-making of the post-colonial state in Zimbabwe.