tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/liberation-struggle-39473/articles
Liberation struggle – The Conversation
2022-02-16T15:12:40Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/177041
2022-02-16T15:12:40Z
2022-02-16T15:12:40Z
Radio has a rich history as a weapon of the liberation struggle in southern Africa
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446073/original/file-20220213-19-16de5ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wits University Press</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Radio, known for decades as <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/02/1111882">‘Africa’s medium’</a>, has many magical qualities. It’s an intimate medium with the ability to transcend borders. It chimes with Africa’s strong <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/African-literature/Oral-traditions-and-the-written-word">oral culture</a> and it is ephemeral – it lives in the present moment. Because of this, radio served as a powerful tool in the <a href="https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000046767">liberation struggle</a> in southern Africa.</p>
<p>Radio leaves no incriminating paper trail. It allowed freedom fighters to counter colonial propaganda and helped leaders in exile maintain a presence with supporters back home. Unlike print media, which dominates the “first drafts of history”, radio’s ephemerality makes it difficult to study. With little concrete content in archives (and often only in the archives of the oppressor), historical analysis has been parochial, anecdotal and sporadic.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446074/original/file-20220213-23-jvb7nm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book cover in green with the words 'Guerilla radios in Southern Africa' and an illustration of a portable radio against a background of camouflage fabric." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446074/original/file-20220213-23-jvb7nm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446074/original/file-20220213-23-jvb7nm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446074/original/file-20220213-23-jvb7nm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446074/original/file-20220213-23-jvb7nm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446074/original/file-20220213-23-jvb7nm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446074/original/file-20220213-23-jvb7nm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446074/original/file-20220213-23-jvb7nm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wits University Press</span></span>
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<p><a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/guerrilla-radios-in-southern-africa/">Guerrilla Radios in Southern Africa: Broadcasters, Technology, Propaganda Wars and the Armed Struggle</a> (2021) is a collection of essays that fills many of the gaps in the study of media’s role in the liberation struggle. Focusing on clandestine radio broadcasting, it shines a light on how rebel broadcasters in Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa disrupted and dismantled the propaganda of colonial powers.</p>
<h2>Battle of the airwaves</h2>
<p>In the second half of the 1900s, southern Africa’s liberation from white colonial powers, including the UK, Portugal, and, in South Africa, the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a> state, was complicated by the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Cold-War">Cold War</a> between the US and Soviet Union and their allies. </p>
<p>The armed struggle involved a battle for the hearts and minds of citizens. National airwaves were dominated by state-controlled radio designed to maintain the status quo. But this was soon disrupted by the establishment of guerrilla broadcasters – often set up by exiled citizens – in Lusaka, Maputo, Harare, Luanda, Brazzaville, and Luanda. As <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/western-Africa/The-formation-of-African-independence-movements">winds of change</a> swept the continent, newly independent states often hosted the guerilla stations of nearby states still seeking independence.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/radio-as-a-form-of-struggle-scenes-from-late-colonial-angola-128019">Radio as a form of struggle: scenes from late colonial Angola</a>
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<p>Now, for the first time in a single publication, historians from a range of institutions have published information on these broadcasters’ producers, policies, listeners and content. They did this by sifting through the archives and conducting interviews with former participants and audiences.</p>
<h2>Many challenges</h2>
<p>Edited by Sekibakiba Peter Lekgoathi, Tshepo Moloi and Alda Romão Saúte Saíde, the book’s eleven chapters illustrate how the battle for the airwaves took on a heroic David-and-Goliath character. Rebel broadcasters operated with limited resources and very little training – as discussed in the chapter Radio Republic South Africa by Sifiso Mxolisi Ndlovu.</p>
<p>Alda Romão Saúte Saíde’s chapter outlines the experiences of the self-taught A Voz da Frelimo (Voice of <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/story/the-struggle-for-freedom-in-mozambique-jstor/mwVRhh_vPQsA8A?hl=en">Frelimo</a>). Broadcasters trained on the spot, each performing a variety of roles.</p>
<p>Staff were also increasingly scattered, as Robert Heinze’s chapter on <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-west-africa-peoples-organisation-swapo">Swapo</a>’s Voice of Namibia explains. And as countries acquired independence and state-owned international services offered to carry guerrilla messages, the stations were weakened through loss of funding and decentralisation.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-zulu-radio-dramas-subverted-apartheids-grand-design-126786">How Zulu radio dramas subverted apartheid's grand design</a>
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<p>Acquiring news was also a challenge. The stations were not especially known for news-breaking reporting. Most recycled news items from the colonists themselves, from local state broadcasts or the BBC’s Africa Service. They reframed them by offering commentary – with information from exiles being an exception.</p>
<h2>Sonic encounters</h2>
<p>Despite these challenges, the book tells how it took only one short, crackling sonic encounter with the voices of the resistance to capture hearts and revive spirits. A major success of the book is its rich qualitative focus on listenership, previously absent in research.</p>
<p>Mhoze Chikowero’s chapter on Zimbabwean exiles explains that the broadcasters themselves had only a sketchy idea of who might be tuning in. Although their message was clear, broadcaster Gula Ndebele remembers: </p>
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<p>Our audiences were largely imagined.</p>
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<p>So it would be interesting for former broadcasters to read about the memories of their listeners. Although audience statistics are absent, it’s clear the broadcasters weren’t speaking into a void. Many listeners attribute their political awakening to the broadcasts. In the Zimbabwean context, a listener recalls how the broadcasts urged him to sign up for military training.</p>
<p>Marissa J. Moorman’s chapter includes recollections of adolescent <a href="https://theconversation.com/radio-as-a-form-of-struggle-scenes-from-late-colonial-angola-128019">Angolan</a> listeners, many of whom “hid to listen”, often in groups and without their parents knowing.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/radio-in-ghana-from-mouthpiece-of-coup-plotters-to-giving-voice-to-the-people-131709">Radio in Ghana: from mouthpiece of coup plotters to giving voice to the people</a>
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<p>Tshepo Moloi explains how the “trial and error” approach of tuning in to <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/radio-freedom-history-south-african-underground-radio-chris-smith">Radio Freedom</a> in South Africa further electrified audiences. A listener recalls: </p>
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<p>One quiet night as I twiddled a transistor radio, searching for a disco music station, I heard the statement, ‘the terrorist regime of Ian Douglas Smith’, delivered in thick African tones … my body tensed with every turn of the knob.</p>
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<p>Moloi’s chapter argues, convincingly, that Radio Freedom helped to revive the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/african-national-congress-anc">ANC</a>’s dormant reputation among <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/black-consciousness-movement-bcm">Black Consciousness Movement</a> supporters, encouraging them to join the movement’s armed wing, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/umkhonto-wesizwe-mk">MK</a>, in exile.</p>
<p>The battle for the airwaves became linked with the armed struggle – most famously symbolised by Radio Freedom’s iconic opening machine gunfire riff. Almost all chapters highlight this relationship. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/radio-is-thriving-in-south-africa-80-are-tuning-in-176846">Radio is thriving in South Africa: 80% are tuning in</a>
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<p>The broadcasts also transcended the armed struggle. They suffused all aspects of civilian life – domestic, cultural, even spiritual. For instance, Dumisani Moyo and Cris Chinaka’s fascinating chapter plumbs the memory of Voice of Zimbabwe <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/zimbabawean-independence-day">veterans</a>, who explain how they built links with spirit mediums in order to unsettle the confidence of black Rhodesian army soldiers, appealing to their religious beliefs.</p>
<h2>Insightful</h2>
<p>Edited volumes often lack focus or collate chapters with spurious connections, resulting in interesting but disparate collections. That is not the case here. The editors’ tight focus on a single medium in a connected geographical area has resulted in a cohesive and thought-provoking read. </p>
<p>The book will be an insightful read for scholars of media, culture and history, as well as anybody interested in southern Africa’s past. We may never have a full picture of the role played by guerrilla radio in the liberation struggle, but this book goes some way towards stamping down some important history that might otherwise be lost.</p>
<p><em>Guerrilla Radios in Southern Africa: Broadcasters, Technology, Propaganda Wars and the Armed Struggle is available from <a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/guerrilla-radios-in-southern-africa/">Wits University Press</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177041/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martha Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The role played by guerrilla radio in the liberation struggle will not be lost to history, thanks to books like this.
Martha Evans, Senior Lecturer in Media Studies, University of Cape Town
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/175533
2022-01-27T15:09:28Z
2022-01-27T15:09:28Z
Rule of law in South Africa protects even those who scorn it
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442317/original/file-20220124-21-c70zys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lindiwe Sisulu pledges to uphold the constitution before fomer Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng in 2014.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Yet another war of words is being waged in South Africa, ostensibly over the role of the courts in delivering the change envisaged in the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/saconstitution-web-eng.pdf">constitution</a>. As usual, given that most attacks on court judgements have come from leading members of the governing African National Congress (ANC), the opening salvos were fired by a member of the cabinet – tourism minister Lindiwe Sisulu, in <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/dailynews/opinion/lindiwe-sisulu-hi-mzansi-have-we-seen-justice-d9b151e5-e5db-4293-aa21-dcccd52a36d3?_ga=2.65286957.249107170.1642404523-1387260856.1549361579">a recent opinion piece in the media</a>. </p>
<p>In the piece, she clearly seeks to evade her (the ANC’s) direct responsibility for their failure over the past 27 years effectively to implement policies and programmes that would have delivered socio-economic rights and services to alleviate <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-can-be-done-to-tackle-the-systemic-causes-of-poverty-in-south-africa-169866">poverty</a> and <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/southafrica/overview#1">inequality</a>. </p>
<p>Aside from calling some black judges <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/dailynews/opinion/lindiwe-sisulu-hi-mzansi-have-we-seen-justice-d9b151e5-e5db-4293-aa21-dcccd52a36d3?_ga=2.65286957.249107170.1642404523-1387260856.1549361579">“mentally colonised” and “house negroes”</a>, Sisulu threw in rhetoric about imperial impositions and the negation of African values. She singled out the rule of law for particular disdain.</p>
<p>This seems odd because politicians mostly claim adherence to the rule of law even if not honouring it in practice. So rejecting it seems to break with one of the essential foundations of any constitutional democracy.</p>
<p>Let us look more closely at the meaning of the rule of law, and why it has come to be the favoured foundation for constitutional democratic governance throughout the world over the past century.</p>
<h2>The rule of law</h2>
<p>The modern origins of the rule of law are usually traced to the work of the English constitutional lawyer A.V. Dicey. <a href="https://files.libertyfund.org/files/1714/0125_Bk.pdf">In his Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution</a> (1885), he defined the rule of law as follows:</p>
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<p>The absolute supremacy … of regular law as opposed to the influence of arbitrary power … It means, again, equality before the law, or the equal subjection of all classes to the ordinary law of the land administered by the ordinary Law Courts; the ‘rule of law’ in this sense excludes the idea of any exemption of officials or others from the duty of obedience to the law which governs other citizens</p>
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<p>Dicey added a third leg to this definition, noting that in England the rule of law was established through popular struggles of ordinary people. This resonates with South Africans’ experience in resisting apartheid.</p>
<p>After the second world war, the rule of law became the rallying cry for all sorts of political and social movements. </p>
<p>The great Marxist social historian E.P. Thompson said (in 1975) the fact that the ruling class was forced to rule by law, and not by abuse of power, was a <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Whigs_and_Hunters.html?id=eKRZAAAAYAAJ&redir_esc=y">cultural achievement of universal significance</a>. Thompson was sceptical about law, but reached this conclusion studying the popular resistance waged in the late 1700s by ordinary people in England against unjust rules irregularly enforced.</p>
<p>The appeal of the rule of law was also enhanced when it was extended to include socio-economic rights. This was triggered by the rapid pace of decolonisation during the 1960s, and pressure from newly independent Asian and African democracies.</p>
<p>The rule of law thus came to embody the rallying cry for the fair and democratic exercise of public power, buttressed by law and fundamental rights. One of South Africa’s leading academic lawyers, Tony Mathews, <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=pZcLb6dn2dsC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">refined Dicey’s definition</a> (1975) by laying down preconditions for what would qualify as “law” and by insisting on the equal guarantee of all basic rights and freedoms.</p>
<h2>Rule of law and accountability</h2>
<p>So the rule of law today has developed greatly since it was first formulated. It has responded to the struggles of those resisting imperialism and autocratic rule throughout the world. </p>
<p>It now demands not only rule by law and the protection of basic rights. It also demands that those who exercise public power account for their decisions and actions. They must justify any departures from constitutional and lawful mandates before an independent and impartial court of law.</p>
<p>The erstwhile apartheid regime argued that it complied with the rule of law. But it plainly did not: although it mostly <a href="https://digitalcommons.nyls.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1431&context=fac_articles_chapters">ruled by law</a>, the rules it adopted did not comply with the generally understood concept of the rule of law. </p>
<p>In particular, most of its laws were premised on “race” inequality and the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">denial of basic rights and freedoms to all</a>. Against this background, the demands by anti-apartheid campaigners inside South Africa over many decades to entrench the rule of law are hardly surprising. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/lindiwe-sisulu-trading-on-a-famous-south-african-surname-has-its-limits-175150">Lindiwe Sisulu: trading on a famous South African surname has its limits</a>
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<p>The ANC committed to government authority limited by law in its <a href="https://scnc.ukzn.ac.za/doc/hist/freedomchart/freedomch.html">1955 Freedom Charter</a> and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/DC/Spn2689.1684.5161.000.056.Spn2689.2/Spn2689.1684.5161.000.056.Spn2689.2.pdf">1988 Constitutional Guidelines</a>. Thus there was strong support during the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/convention-democratic-south-africa-codesa">constitutional negotiations of the early 1990s</a> for the rule of law as a founding value of the post-apartheid democratic regime.</p>
<p>So the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/saconstitution-web-eng.pdf">1996 constitution</a> provides in section 1 that </p>
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<p>South Africa is one, sovereign, democratic state founded on the following values: … (c) Supremacy of the constitution and the rule of law.</p>
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<p>It is widely referred to by all judicial officers, particularly in holding the executive and public administration to account for their exercise of public power.</p>
<p>The rule of law thus provides a universal benchmark for assessing the accountability of government for the lawful, effective, efficient and uncorrupt provision of goods and services. It is precisely the corrupt abuse of power that has become so widespread in public governance since about 2010 (<a href="https://www.loot.co.za/product/richard-calland-the-zuma-years/lwlk-1845-g5a0">under former president Jacob Zuma</a>) that threatens the survival of the rule of law. Had it not been for the many court judgments upholding the rule of law, the country would be in a far worse position now.</p>
<h2>Minister Sisulu’s claims in context</h2>
<p>So what accounts for this most recent and shockingly intemperate assault on the judiciary? </p>
<p>Minister Sisulu appeared to be attacking the courts for their critical role in <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-south-africas-constitutional-court-protecting-democracy-107443">upholding the rule of law</a>. </p>
<p>She vilified (black) judges for requiring compliance with the constitution and parliamentary laws, and for demanding accountability for the exercise of public power. But she proposed no solutions for the problem she manufactured.</p>
<p>Her remarks coincided with the release of the <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/550966842/Judicial-Commission-of-Inquiry-Into-State-Capture-Report-Part-1#from_embed">first of Justice Raymond Zondo’s reports on state capture</a>. The report contains <a href="https://theconversation.com/state-capture-report-chronicles-extent-of-corruption-in-south-africa-but-will-action-follow-174441">harsh criticism of the corruption</a> and abuse of power by the ANC and its leaders. </p>
<p>The governing party’s reputation is in tatters and public pressure for accountability mounts. Must one thus conclude that it is Justice Raymond Zondo and the state capture commission, together with that faction of the ANC which is regarded as being in favour of the foundational values of South Africa’s constitutional democracy, that are the real targets of Sisulu’s vitriol?</p>
<p>It is often argued that a constitutional regime is only as good as the protections it provides for those who oppose government, even from within. The rule of law is the key element in any such dispensation. Those who would destroy the rule of law and its enforcer, the judiciary, should ask themselves: to whom will I turn for protection if I find myself on the wrong side of political power?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175533/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hugh Corder has in the past received funding from the National Research Foundation of South Africa. He serves as a Director of Freedom under Law and on the Executive Committee of the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution.</span></em></p>
The rule of law embodies the rallying cry for the fair and democratic exercise of public power, buttressed by law and fundamental rights.
Hugh Corder, Professor Emeritus of Public Law, University of Cape Town
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/173638
2021-12-12T14:26:13Z
2021-12-12T14:26:13Z
Lindiwe Mabuza: feminist icon who used art to fight for democracy in South Africa
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437018/original/file-20211211-19-1rwamnh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lindiwe Mabuza (right) with President Cyril Ramaphosa in 2018.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Katlholo Maifadi/GCIS</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the tributes continued to <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23LindiweMabuza&src=typed_query&f=top">pour in</a> for South Africa’s <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/lindiwe-mabuza">Lindiwe Mabuza</a>, who <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/struggle-icon-and-poet-lindiwe-mabuza-dies-20211207">passed away</a> on 6 December 2021, it was clear that she will be remembered for the <a href="https://sala.org.za/lindiwe-mabuza/">many different roles</a> she occupied during her lifetime. She was called ambassador, diplomat, feminist, poet, writer, freedom fighter, leader and educator, amongst others. </p>
<p>Born in 1938 in Newcastle, South Africa, she was undoubtedly an advocate for women’s rights, and she foregrounded women’s concerns at a time when the struggle against <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a> surpassed the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-womens-struggle-south-africa">rights of women</a>. </p>
<p>Lindiwe skillfully linked her love for the creative arts with teaching moments. Close to her heart were innovative ways of teaching children to write about their experiences. She traveled across Scandinavia teaching children about the evils of apartheid – an ideology of racial segregation entrenched by white minority rule in South Africa. </p>
<p>Long before the demise of apartheid, from 1979 already, she was representing the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/african-national-congress-anc">African National Congress</a> (ANC) in the Nordic countries and the US and is well recognised for her role in solidifying the international movement against apartheid. After democracy in 1994 she would become an ambassador, eventually serving as South Africa’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom from 2001.</p>
<h2>Intellectual cultural activism</h2>
<p>For Lindiwe, art was an <a href="https://creativefeel.co.za/2017/11/lindiwe-mabuza-a-life-of-cultural-activism/">essential component</a> of the apartheid struggle: “We used it as a weapon, an extra weapon of the struggle.” </p>
<p>It was the combination of the art of storytelling as teaching methodology, as a way of raising awareness, as a tool to network, that contributed to her leadership style. Examples of these are her <a href="https://www.thediplomaticsociety.co.za/3599-tribute-to-lindiwe-mabuza-diplomat-poet-and-cultural-activist">networks</a> and friendships with prominent African American artists such as <a href="https://www.quincyjones.com">Quincy Jones</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Danny-Glover">Danny Glover</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Harry-Belafonte">Harry Belafonte</a> as well as Black leaders like the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jesse-Jackson">Reverend Jesse Jackson</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Randall-Robinson">Randal Robinson</a> and <a href="https://lee.house.gov/about/biography">Barbara Lee</a>, to name a few.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437024/original/file-20211211-17-1rld9eu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book cover in beige and white with an illustration of a black woman holding a gun and a baby." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437024/original/file-20211211-17-1rld9eu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437024/original/file-20211211-17-1rld9eu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437024/original/file-20211211-17-1rld9eu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437024/original/file-20211211-17-1rld9eu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437024/original/file-20211211-17-1rld9eu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1065&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437024/original/file-20211211-17-1rld9eu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1065&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437024/original/file-20211211-17-1rld9eu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1065&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mabuza used the name Sono Molefe for the book of struggle poetry.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">uHlanga poetry press</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2017 she deservedly <a href="https://act.org.za/2017/10/get-to-know-the-act-lifetime-achievement-award-winners/">received</a> the Arts and Culture Trust Lifetime Achievement Award for Arts Advocacy. The award <a href="https://creativefeel.co.za/2017/11/lindiwe-mabuza-a-life-of-cultural-activism/">traced</a> her involvement in becoming the editor of the ANC <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/anc-womens-league-struggle-womens-rights-south-africa-meghan-knapp">Women’s League</a> publication Voice of Women in 1977, where she provided the platform for women to express themselves. She also used her position as broadcaster in the ANC’s <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/radio-freedom-history-south-african-underground-radio-chris-smith">Radio Freedom</a> to highlight women’s plight. And she was responsible for promoting the <a href="http://uhlangapress.co.za/malibongwe-poems-from-the-struggle-by-anc-women-ed-sono-molefe">Malibongwe book project</a>. For this she invited women teachers, freedom fighters, nurses and students who were in the trenches of Tanzania, Angola, and Mozambique to submit in their own words their experiences as black women in the struggle. She edited the book – which was banned but appeared in Europe in 1980 – under the name Sono Molefe. </p>
<p>Lindiwe believed that it was important for women to tell their own stories because they too played an important part in the history against oppression. She was indeed a feminist when the concept was not yet as popular as now.</p>
<p>Her love for storytelling is evident in her various poetry anthologies. She herself <a href="https://murderinparis.com/assets/images/Resources-page/Newsletters/May_2021.pdf">said</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Poetry is part of the struggle. You use the armed struggle; you use political methods … You recite a poem. It’s better than a three-hour speech. It gets to the heart of the matter. It moves people.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is so reminiscent of the struggle poetry and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/African-theatre-art/Southern-and-South-Africa">theatre</a> that have such an integral part of the apartheid struggle era.</p>
<p>She published <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Voices_that_Lead.html?id=XMR7NAAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">Voices that Lead: Poems 1976-1996</a> (1998); <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Letter_to_Letta.html?id=bRNtQgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">Letter to Letta</a> (1991); <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Footprints_and_Fingerprints.html?id=UxsgAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">Footprints and Fingerprints</a> (2008); <a href="http://uhlangapress.co.za/malibongwe-poems-from-the-struggle-by-anc-women-ed-sono-molefe">Malibongwe, One Never Knows</a> – poetry and short stories by African Congress Women; From ANC to Sweden; and <a href="https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Lindiwe-Mabuza/dp/3872948075">Africa to Me: Gedichte Englisch/Deutsch</a> (1999).</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7TxYj63A_N8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Mabuza discussing her O.R. Tambo book project.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lindiwe never forgot the children and in 2007 she published a children’s book <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/South_African_Animals.html?id=NLivGQAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">South African Animals</a>. In the same pedagogical tradition, she edited a book by 30 contributors titled <a href="https://www.polity.org.za/article/conversations-with-uncle-or---lindiwe-mazibuko-2018-08-13">Conversations with Uncle O.R.</a> – Childhood Memoirs in Exile in which the contributors reflect on their experiences born, raised and educated in foreign countries. </p>
<p>It was important for her to give space and voice to the children whose experiences are often marginalised and even erased in the broader struggle for freedom and democracy.</p>
<h2>Lifelong educator</h2>
<p>Her life is a kaleidoscope of a lifelong educator and artistic creator intersecting with age, nationalities and gender. She used every opportunity to build movements with a consciousness and understood it is imperative that you archive these experiences in writing. She leaves behind a legacy of collaboration and networking. </p>
<p>Lindiwe was especially interested in marginalised children and women and had the ability to draw on her skills as educator and provide the platforms where they too could give expression in this masculine and patriarchal world.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/black-feminist-writers-in-south-africa-raise-their-voices-in-a-new-book-161445">Black feminist writers in South Africa raise their voices in a new book</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Lindiwe Mabuza’s life did not have an easy beginning, but she was able to use those disadvantages as a challenge and in the process, she did not leave others behind but continued to create opportunities and platforms for others. Her cultural and political work will continue to live in her publications.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173638/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mary Hames does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
For her, art was a weapon in the struggle and a tool for education. She used every opportunity to build movements and to archive experiences in writing.
Mary Hames, Researcher and Gender Equity Officer, University of the Western Cape
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/146408
2021-06-17T15:10:07Z
2021-06-17T15:10:07Z
Kenneth Kaunda: the last giant of African nationalism and benign autocrat left a mixed legacy
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358636/original/file-20200917-24-1xzswgv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda at the inauguration of former South African president Thabo Mbeki in 2004.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/dr-kenneth-kaunda-former-president-zambia-born">Kenneth Kaunda</a>, the former president of Zambia, who has <a href="https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/former-president-kenneth-kaunda-passes-away-aged-97/">died in hospital in the capital, Lusaka</a>, at the age of 97, was the last of the giants of 20th century African nationalism. He was also one of the few to depart with his reputation still intact. But perhaps more than any of his contemporaries, the standing of the man who ruled over Zambia for 27 years is clouded with ambiguity.</p>
<p>The charismatic president who won accolades for bowing out peacefully after losing an election was also the authoritarian who introduced a one-party state. The pioneer of “African socialism” was the man who cut a supply-side deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The nationalist leader known for personal probity planned to give huge tracts of farmland to an Indian guru. The revolutionary who gave sanctuary to liberation movements was also a friend of US presidents.</p>
<p>I met him in 1989 when I helped organise a delegation of 120 white South African notables for a conference with the then-banned and exiled <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/brief-history-anc">African National Congress</a>, which was fighting for the liberation of black South Africans, in Lusaka. “KK”, as he was known, shed tears as he welcomed guests, who included the <a href="https://hsf.org.za/about/about-the-helen-suzman-foundation">liberal MP Helen Suzman</a>, known for her defiant opposition to the apartheid government.</p>
<p>By then, he’d been president for a quarter of a century and seemed a permanent fixture at the apex of southern African politics. And yet, as it turned out, he was on his final lap.</p>
<p>He exuded an image of the benign monarch, a much-loved father to his people, known for his endearing quirks – safari suits, waving white handkerchiefs, ballroom dancing, singing his own songs while cycling, and crying in public. And yet there was also a hard edge to the politics and persona of the man, whose powerful personality helped make Zambia a major player in Africa and the world for three decades.</p>
<h2>The early years</h2>
<p>Kenneth David Kaunda was born in Chinsali, Northern Zambia, on October 24 1924. Like so many of his generation of African liberation leaders, he came from a family of the mission-educated middle class. He was the baby among eight children. His father was a Presbyterian missionary-teacher and his mother was the first qualified African woman teacher in the country.</p>
<p>He followed his parents’ profession, first in Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia), where he became a head teacher before his 21st birthday. He also taught in then Tanganyika (Tanzania), where he became a lifelong admirer of future president Julius Nyerere, whose “Ujamaa” brand of African socialism he tried to follow.</p>
<p>After returning home, Kaunda campaigned against the British plan for a <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230270916_12">federation</a> of Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, which would increase the powers of white settlers. He took up politics full-time, learning the ropes through working for the liberal Legislative Council member <a href="https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-33474">Sir Stewart Gore-Browne</a>. Soon after, as secretary general of the Northern Rhodesian African National Congress, he was jailed for two months with hard labour for distributing <a href="https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/zambians-campaign-independence-1944-1964">“subversive literature”</a>.</p>
<p>After his release he clashed with his organisation’s president, Harry Nkumbula, who took a more conciliatory approach to colonial rule. Kaunda led the breakaway Zambian African National Congress, which was promptly banned. He was <a href="https://biography.yourdictionary.com/kenneth-david-kaunda">jailed for nine months</a>, further boosting his status.</p>
<p>A new movement, the United National Independence Party <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3172067">(UNIP)</a>), chose Kaunda as its leader after his release. He travelled to America and <a href="https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/kenneth-kaunda-the-united-states-and-southern-africa/introduction-kenneth-kaunda-and-zambia-united-states-relations-before-1975">met Martin Luther King</a>. Inspired by King and Mahatma Gandhi, he launched the <a href="https://cdn.website-editor.net/74225855d7734800bb2b5c38f2c1cf16/files/uploaded/chachacha.pdf">“Cha-cha-cha” civil disobedience campaign</a>.</p>
<p>In 1962, encouraged by Kaunda’s moves to pacify the white settlers, the British acceded to self-rule, followed by full independence two years later. He emerged as the first Zambian president after <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/25/newsid_2658000/2658325.stm">UNIP won the election</a>.</p>
<h2>The challenges of independence</h2>
<p>One challenge for the newly independent Zambia related to the colonial education system. There were no universities and fewer than half a percent of pupils had completed primary school. Kaunda introduced a policy of free books and low fees. In 1966 he became the first chancellor of the new <a href="https://www.unza.zm/international/?p=history">University of Zambia</a>. Several other universities and tertiary education facilities followed.</p>
<p>Long after he was ousted as president, Kaunda continued to be warmly received in African capitals because of his role in allowing liberation movements to have bases in Lusaka. This came at considerable economic cost to his country, which also endured military raids from the South Africans and Rhodesians.</p>
<p>At the same time, he joined apartheid South Africa’s hard-line prime minister <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/balthazar-johannes-vorster">BJ Vorster</a> in mediating a failed bid for an internal settlement in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) in 1975. He attempted the same in South West Africa (Namibia), which was then administered by South Africa. But <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/pieter-willem-botha">President PW Botha</a>, who succeeded Vorster after his death, showed no interest.</p>
<p>Kaunda helped lead the <a href="https://www.nti.org/learn/treaties-and-regimes/non-aligned-movement-nam/">Non-Aligned Movement</a>, which brought together states that did not align with either the Soviets or the Americans during the Cold War. He broke bread with anyone who showed an interest in Zambia, including Romania’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nicolae-Ceausescu">Nicolai Ceausescu</a> and Iraq’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/saddam-hussein-how-a-deadly-purge-of-opponents-set-up-his-ruthless-dictatorship-120748">Saddam Hussein</a>, while also cultivating successive American presidents (having more success with <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/james-carter/">Jimmy Carter</a> than <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/ronald-reagan/">Ronald Reagan</a>). He invited China to help build the <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/1983/0330/033064.html">Tazara Railway</a> and bought 16 MIG-21 fighter jets from the Soviet Union <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/1980/0205/020532.html">in 1980</a>.</p>
<h2>African humanism</h2>
<p>Kaunda’s economic policy was framed by his belief in what he called “African humanism” but also by necessity. He inherited an economy under foreign control and moved to remedy this. For example, the mines owned by the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/British-South-Africa-Company">British South African Company</a> (founded by <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/cecil-john-rhodes">Cecil John Rhodes</a>) were acquired as a result of colonial conquest in 1890. Kaunda’s threats to nationalise without compensation prompted major concessions from BSAC.</p>
<p>He promoted a planned economy, leading to “development plans” that involved the state’s Industrial Development Corporation acquiring 51% equity in major foreign-owned companies. The policy was undermined by the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/mar/03/1970s-oil-price-shock">1973 spike in the oil price</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1973/02/04/archives/as-copper-goes-so-goes-zambia.html">fall in the price of copper</a>, which made up 95% of Zambia’s exports.</p>
<p>The consequent balance of payments crisis led to Zambia having the world’s second highest debt relative to GDP, <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/11985187.pdf">prompting IMF intervention</a>. Kaunda at first resisted but by 1989 was forced to bow to its demands. Parastatals were partially privatised, spending was slashed, food subsidies ended, prices rocketed and Kaunda’s support plummeted. </p>
<p>Like many anti-colonial leaders, he’d come to view multi-party democracy as a western concept that fomented conflict and tribalism. This view was encouraged by the 1964 uprising of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1964/08/13/archives/rhodesia-holds-leader-of-cult-kaunda-says-alice-lenshina-calls-for.html">Lumpa religious sect</a>. He banned all parties other than UNIP in 1968 and Zambia officially became a one-party state four years later.</p>
<p>His government became increasingly autocratic and intolerant of dissent, centred on his personality cult. But Kaunda will go down in history as a relatively benign autocrat who avoided the levels of repression and corruption of so many other one-party rulers.</p>
<p>Julius Nyerere, who retired in 1985, tried to persuade his friend to follow suit, but Kaunda pressed on. After surviving a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/01/world/failed-zambia-coup-weakens-leader.html">coup attempt in 1990</a> and following food riots, he reluctantly acceded to the demand for a multi-party election in 1991. </p>
<p>His popularity could not survive the chaos prompted by price rises and was not helped by the revelation that he’d planned to grant <a href="http://www.minet.org/TM-EX/Fall-91">more than a quarter of Zambia’s land</a> to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (who promised to create a “heaven on earth”). The trade union leader Frederick Chiluba won in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/02/world/zambian-voters-defeat-kaunda-sole-leader-since-independence.html">landslide victory in 1991</a>.</p>
<h2>The last years</h2>
<p>Kaunda <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4283286.stm">won kudos abroad</a> for what was considered to be his gracious response to electoral defeat, but the new government was less magnanimous. It placed him under house arrest after alleging a coup attempt; then <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/01/world/founder-of-zambia-is-declared-stateless-in-high-court-ruling.html">declared him stateless</a> when he planned to run in the 1996 election (on the grounds that his father was born in Malawi), which he successfully challenged in court. He survived an <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/shot-kaunda-claims-attempt-on-life-1.99800">assassination attempt in 1997</a>, getting grazed by a bullet. One of his sons, Wezi, was shot dead outside their home in 1999.</p>
<p>The 1986 AIDS death of another son, Masuzgo, inspired him to campaign around HIV issues far earlier than most, and he stepped this up over the next two decades. After Chiluba’s departure, he returned to favour and became a <a href="https://thenews-chronicle.com/a-life-that-defies-expectations-a-tribute-to-kenneth-kaunda-at-96/">roving ambassador for Zambia</a>. He reduced his public role following the <a href="https://www.lusakatimes.com/2012/09/19/mama-betty-kaunda-dies/">2012 death</a> of his wife of 66 years, Betty.</p>
<p>Kaunda will be remembered as a giant of 20th century African nationalism – a leader who, at great cost, gave refuge to revolutionary movements, a relatively benign autocrat who reluctantly introduced democracy to his country and an international diplomat who punched well above his weight in world affairs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146408/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gavin Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Kaunda will be remembered as a giant of 20th century African nationalism – a leader who gave refuge to revolutionary movements, a relatively benign autocrat and an international diplomat.
Gavin Evans, Lecturer, Culture and Media department, Birkbeck, University of London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/151594
2020-12-17T07:41:19Z
2020-12-17T07:41:19Z
In its portrayal of women, the classic South African novel Mhudi was ahead of its time
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374176/original/file-20201210-24-16m8b24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A statue of the author, Solomon T. Plaatje, in Kimberley, South Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">flowcomm/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/conversing-across-a-century-with-thinker-author-and-politician-sol-t-plaatje-66298">Solomon T. Plaatje</a> was born in 1876 and was one of the founding members of South Africa’s current ruling party, the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/anc-origins-and-background">African National Congress</a>. </p>
<p>He was a politician, intellectual, journalist and author of the seminal <em><a href="http://witspress.co.za/catalogue/sol-plaatjes-native-life-in-south-africa/">Native Life in South Africa</a></em>. He was also a writer of fiction. His first and only novel, <em><a href="https://readinglist.click/sub/find-out-more-about-mhudi-the-first-novel-by-a-black-south-african-in-an-excerpt-from-sol-plaatje-a-life-of-solomon-tshekisho-plaatje/">Mhudi</a></em>, was written in 1920 and published a decade later. </p>
<p>Despite being the first novel by a Black South African in English, it had little impact on the literary landscape of the country at the time. However, <a href="https://theconversation.com/anniversaries-spark-renewed-readings-of-south-africas-celebrated-sol-plaatje-131580">over the past century</a>, the novel has garnered great interest from scholars.</p>
<p>One notable aspect of the novel is that it centres a woman as its protagonist – the Mhudi of the title – and her role in resistance. Her proactive, adventurous, quick-witted character has led a number of scholars to consider the novel from a <a href="https://journals.co.za/content/journal/10520/EJC-8d732c906">feminist perspective</a>. In fact, it has been <a href="http://africaworldpressbooks.com/bringing-plaatje-back-home-ga-e-phetsolele-nageng-re-storying-the-african-and-batswana-sensibilities-in-his-oeuvre-by-d-s-matjila-karen-haire/">described</a> as “ahead of its time” for its portrayal of women in an <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/womens-rights-and-representation">era</a> when women had few rights, and Black women almost none.</p>
<p>When working on my chapter for the new book, <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Sol_Plaatje_s_Mhudi.html?id=9csMzgEACAAJ&redir_esc=y"><em>Sol Plaatje’s Mhudi: History, Criticism, Celebration</em></a>, I found that most feminist scholarship on the novel has focused on the individual character of Mhudi. So, I turned my attention to Mhudi’s solidarity with other women and what this might tell us about Plaatje’s view of the nature of political struggle.</p>
<h2>What the novel’s about</h2>
<p><em>Mhudi</em> takes place against the backdrop of fictionalised versions of actual historical events in what is today called South Africa. The action of the novel is set off by King Mzilikazi’s massacre of the Barolong people at Kunana in 1832. <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/king-mzilikazi">Mzilikazi</a> was king of the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/matabele-wars-1836-1896">Matabele</a>, a group of people today known as the Ndebele and living mostly in Zimbabwe. The <a href="https://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?sid=7&aid=481&dir=2012/May/Friday25/">Barolong</a>, now called the Rolong, are a clan of the Tswana people living largely in Botswana.</p>
<p>Mhudi, a young Barolong woman, manages to escape the massacre with her life, but believes she is the only one of her people left alive. However, after wandering in the wilderness, she meets a young Barolong man, Ra-Thaga, and they get married. The story follows the couple on several perilous adventures, in which Mhudi frequently saves Ra-Thaga through common sense and uncommon bravery, until they are united with the other surviving Barolong.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/anniversaries-spark-renewed-readings-of-south-africas-celebrated-sol-plaatje-131580">Anniversaries spark renewed readings of South Africa's celebrated Sol Plaatje</a>
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<p>Determined to defeat the Matabele, the Barolong form a coalition with the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Boer-people">Boers</a>, the white, Afrikaans-speaking farmers descended from Dutch settlers. Ra-Thaga takes part in the successful battle, but is wounded. Mhudi, seeing this in a dream, leaves her children with her cousin and travels to aid him. On her way, she befriends Hannetjie, a young Boer woman, and Umnandi, the favourite wife of Mzilikazi, who fled her home because of the scheming of her co-wives. The Matabele routed, Mhudi and Ra-Thaga happily return home.</p>
<h2>Women’s solidarity</h2>
<p>The most obvious of women’s solidarities in the novel are those with their husbands. The second most apparent are the friendships Mhudi forms across racial and ethnic boundaries with Umnandi and Hannetjie. While personal, these relationships also have political implications. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374404/original/file-20201211-13-16hinm8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An old book open at the first page, with text in an illustrated frame reading, 'Mhudi - an epic of South African Native Life a Hundred Years Ago.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374404/original/file-20201211-13-16hinm8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374404/original/file-20201211-13-16hinm8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374404/original/file-20201211-13-16hinm8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374404/original/file-20201211-13-16hinm8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374404/original/file-20201211-13-16hinm8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374404/original/file-20201211-13-16hinm8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374404/original/file-20201211-13-16hinm8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">First edition of Mhudi, Lovedale Press.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Blessing Kgasa/Kanye Records Centre/Twitter</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mhudi’s relationships with these two women allow her to see the humanity of the Matabele and the Boers, who she had, until this point, seen as inhumane and violent. This is because these two women also express their disapproval for unjust violence and suffering.</p>
<p>Mhudi’s friendships with these two exceptional women and their significance has been discussed in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00138399208690889">feminist analyses</a> of the novel. However, the collective solidarity that Mhudi has with Barolong women has not really been considered. And yet, this is important in how we understand Plaatje’s view of <a href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/eia/article/view/129243">resistance</a>. We can see this idea of collective solidarity – standing together – in a story Mhudi tells Ra-Thaga about how she escaped being killed by a lion when she was a girl.</p>
<p>The story goes that Mhudi is out picking berries with a number of other Barolong girls and comes face-to-face with a lion. The other girls initially run away, but when they see Mhudi is paralysed with fright they run back and manage to scare off the lion. The fact that the girls are willing to return to Mhudi, even to die alongside her, suggests a deep sense of solidarity and commitment, the kind that arguably binds together successful political movements.</p>
<h2>The individual and the collective</h2>
<p>The reception of the lion story among the Barolong shows a tension between the collective and the individual. Ra-Thaga knows the story well. Mhudi’s bravery has been celebrated and she has even been called a heroine. However, the collective role of the girls in saving her has been lost in the story’s retelling.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/conversing-across-a-century-with-thinker-author-and-politician-sol-t-plaatje-66298">Conversing across a century with thinker, author and politician Sol T Plaatje</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We might understand this as a critique of individual heroism in stories of resistance (especially if we read the lion as a symbol of British and other imperialism) to the exclusion of the recognition of the collective that makes resistance possible.</p>
<p>It’s significant that Mhudi’s most productive relationships are with Barolong women from her community. Her relationship with Hannetjie has no real political impact besides shifting Mhudi’s view of the Boers. Despite herself and Hannetjie sharing a horror over the treatment of the servants, their friendship does not result in any material resistance to injustice. </p>
<p>Her relationship with Umnandi creates a deeper solidarity, as they both promise to use their influence on men to promote peace. However, it is her cousin looking after her children that allows her to make the journey that leads to her relationships with Umnandi and Hannetjie and to assisting her husband.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373912/original/file-20201209-20-m5727p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book cover with a linocut-inspired illustration of a man and a woman, her arm around his shoulders." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373912/original/file-20201209-20-m5727p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373912/original/file-20201209-20-m5727p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373912/original/file-20201209-20-m5727p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373912/original/file-20201209-20-m5727p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373912/original/file-20201209-20-m5727p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1144&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373912/original/file-20201209-20-m5727p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1144&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373912/original/file-20201209-20-m5727p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1144&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jacana Media</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Therefore, I read in <em>Mhudi</em> a sense of the importance of collective, communal forms of solidarity. Even when resistance requires alliances across racial, ethnic and gender boundaries, it is the communal solidarities women form that allow for individual and boundary-crossing solidarities to exist. </p>
<p>This might serve as a reminder to consider how we intrepret Plaatje’s place in the history of struggle in South Africa. While Plaatje is a fascinating and notable figure, whatever legacy he has left us was created and preserved through solidarities with others.</p>
<p><em>This article is based on Jenny Boźena du Preez’s chapter in the <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Sol_Plaatje_s_Mhudi.html?id=9csMzgEACAAJ&redir_esc=y">book</a> Sol Plaatje’s Mhudi: History, Criticism, Celebration published by Jacana Media.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151594/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jenny Boźena du Preez does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
According to a new book, the friendships among women in the novel reveal its author Sol T. Plaatje’s view of effective political struggle.
Jenny Boźena du Preez, Postdoctoral Fellow, Nelson Mandela University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/130546
2020-01-26T09:15:43Z
2020-01-26T09:15:43Z
Surviving genocide: a voice from colonial Namibia at the turn of the last century
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311811/original/file-20200124-81369-1gzexmq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A human skull on display in Berlin in 2018. Germany handed back human remains seized during the Namibia genocide from 1904 to 1908.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Hayoung Jeon</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Germany committed genocide in Africa 40 years before the <a href="https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/what-was-the-holocaust/">Holocaust</a> of the European Jews. In 1904 and 1905 the Ovaherero and Nama people of central and southern Namibia rose up against colonial rule and dispossession in what was then called German South West Africa. The revolt was brutally crushed. By 1908, 80% of the Ovaherero and 50% of the Nama <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/herero-people-south-west-africa-now-namibia-begin-uprising">had died</a> of starvation and thirst, overwork and exposure to harsh climates. </p>
<p>The army drove survivors into the waterless Omaheke desert. Thousands more died in <a href="http://en.rfi.fr/Paris-exhibition-20th-centurys-first-genocide-massacre-Namibias-Herero-and-Nama">concentration camps</a>. </p>
<p>For <a href="https://books.google.de/books/about/The_Kaiser_s_Holocaust.html?id=CSqc0CsnL-AC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">many historians</a> this first genocide committed by Germany provided the template for the horrors that were to come 40 years later during the Holocaust of the European Jews. The <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arendt/">philosopher Hannah Arendt</a>, herself a Holocaust refugee from Germany, <a href="https://koneensaatio.fi/en/hannah-arendt-the-origins-and-consequences-of-ideological-racism/">explained</a> in 1951 that European imperialism played a crucial role in the development of Nazi totalitarianism and associated genocides.</p>
<p>We know very little about the experience of those who lived through this first systematic mass extinction of the 20th century. Forty-seven testimonies were recorded and published in 1918 in a scathing official British report about German colonial rule in Namibia, known as the Blue Book. One eyewitness <a href="https://www.ascleiden.nl/publications/words-cannot-be-found-german-colonial-rule-namibia-annotated-reprint-1918-blue-book">remarked</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Words cannot be found to relate what happened; it was too terrible.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Following on an earlier <a href="https://bokbyenforlag.no/butikk/fakta/debatt-politikk-og-samfunn/mama-penee-jenta-som-gjennomskuet-folkemordet/">Norwegian edition</a>, a new book, Mama Penee: Transcending the Genocide, by Uazuvara Ewald Kapombo Katjivena, to be published by <a href="http://www.unam.edu.na/unam-press/publishers-welcome">UNAM Press</a> in Windhoek in February, makes an extraordinary attempt to present the lived experience of the genocide. </p>
<h2>Surviving a genocide</h2>
<p>Based on oral and family history, Katjivena, a former exiled liberation Namibian fighter until the country’s independence from South Africa <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/namibian-struggle-independence-1966-1990-historical-background">in 1990</a>, tells his grandmother’s story in a biography deeply infused with family and oral history. His grandmother, Jahohora, survived the genocide as an 11-year-old girl. </p>
<p>In the book’s opening scene young Jahohora witnesses her parents’ murder at the hands of German colonial troops in 1904. Following this traumatic experience, she wanders into the veld. The young girl survives on her own, using skills that her mother had imparted to her, to scavenge from the environment. She traps rabbits and birds, eats berries and wild honey, and occasionally feasts on an ostrich egg.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312033/original/file-20200127-81341-1gzpnqt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312033/original/file-20200127-81341-1gzpnqt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312033/original/file-20200127-81341-1gzpnqt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312033/original/file-20200127-81341-1gzpnqt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312033/original/file-20200127-81341-1gzpnqt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312033/original/file-20200127-81341-1gzpnqt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312033/original/file-20200127-81341-1gzpnqt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The remaining connection with her parents is cruelly cut after she is caught and forced to work for a German farmer. During the “civilising” washing and changing of her attire, her ceremonial Ovaherero headgear is cut into pieces and burnt by the farmer’s wife. </p>
<p>The headgear was her mother’s significant gift for the growing daughter just before the start of the hostilities in early 1904. Jahohora suffers deeply humiliating experiences.</p>
<p>Katjivena’s grandmother was a remarkable woman of deep thought, insight, and immense resolve. Her parents and grandparents belonged to a section of the Ovaherero called the Ovatjurure. They played a significant role in their communities by helping to maintain peace among families in the nearby homesteads and in the neighbouring villages.</p>
<p>Their daughter passed on this remarkable tradition to the children and grandchildren she brought up during Namibia’s colonial era under Germany and South Africa.</p>
<h2>Regaining agency</h2>
<p>Katjivena intersperses Jahohora’s personal perspective with historical facts. We read a detailed, chilling account of General Lothar von Trotha’s <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/general-lothar-von-trotha-extermination-order-against-herero">extermination order of 2 October 1904</a>. The oral history telling, however, also indicates instances of humanity during an entirely inhumane era. </p>
<p>Who were these white people, the survivor wondered. Why had some German soldiers saved her from certain death and given her a chance of life while their fellows had mercilessly killed her parents? As Jahohora meets other survivors and hears their stories, she begins to understand the genocide and especially the role of Von Trotha, who is locally known as omuzepe (the killer).</p>
<p>Katjivena’s story looks simple, yet it exudes deep meaning. It turns the gaze onto the oppressors. The resisting gaze of the colonised, the cultural theorist Elizabeth Baer <a href="http://www.unam.edu.na/news/unam-press-latest-book-confronts-genocide">writes</a>, is an act of self-creation. It “begins to recognize and restore agency to the victims of imperialism”.</p>
<h2>Transcending the genocide</h2>
<p>The subtitle of Katjivena’s book is Transcending the Genocide. It adds a tremendous living voice to the symbolic commemorations of Germany’s African genocide that have taken place over the past few years. </p>
<p>Importantly, human remains of genocide victims were repatriated from Germany to Namibia in 2011, 2014 and 2018. These had been shipped to academic and medical institutions in Germany, and had remained there <a href="https://theconversation.com/namibian-genocide-victims-remains-are-home-but-germany-still-has-work-to-do-102655">until recently</a>. </p>
<p>In 2019 some significant items of cultural memory, which had been stolen during colonial conquest, were <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/namibia-dispute-over-return-of-the-witbooi-bible/a-47712784">returned to Namibia </a> from the Linden Museum in Stuttgart. These included the slain Nama leader Hendrik Witbooi’s Bible and his riding whip.</p>
<p>In Windhoek a Genocide Memorial, built in 2014, signifies a noteworthy shift in post-colonial Namibian memory politics. The statue’s North Korean aesthetics and symbolism <a href="https://www.njas.fi/njas/article/view/266/250">remain controversial</a>. That aside, the new monument shows that the genocide of the Ovaherero and Nama has belatedly entered the public history narrative of Namibian nationhood. This would have been impossible a <a href="https://www.njas.fi/njas/article/view/266/250">few years earlier</a>.</p>
<h2>Reconciliation and reparations</h2>
<p>On the political level, the German government finally acknowledged the colonial genocide <a href="https://theconversation.com/has-the-relationship-between-namibia-and-germany-sunk-to-a-new-low-121329">in 2015</a>. Ever since, Namibian and German envoys have been talking about an official apology by Germany. </p>
<p>Most controversial have been negotiations about <a href="https://theconversation.com/namibian-traditional-leaders-haul-germany-before-us-court-in-genocide-test-case-71222">reparations</a>. Also controversial has been the role of the Ovaherero and Nama communities that were directly affected by the genocide. But in January 2020 Germany’s new ambassador to Namibia, Herbert Beck, hinted that important political developments might be <a href="https://www.namibian.com.na/87306/read/Aid-no-compromise-for-reparations?fbclid=IwAR3C7KiUAnOK1ZABLJoRjt0jRB3Y4w-U2vhX7u20gtKW1nQTTGG00vQb8Ww#close">about to happen</a>. </p>
<p>It is not clear yet where the complicated process of post-colonial reconciliation is going. Yet, with stories such as Katjivena’s remarkable biography of his grandmother, the dead and the survivors of the colonial genocide are finally given a face.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130546/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heike Becker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
An oral history based biography of a survivor of colonial genocide in Namibia indicates instances of humanity during an entirely inhumane era.
Heike Becker, Professor of Anthropology, University of the Western Cape
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/128657
2019-12-18T12:44:06Z
2019-12-18T12:44:06Z
Art as a weapon in South Africa’s liberation struggle
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307631/original/file-20191218-11909-1sl4cmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C84%2C859%2C599&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Detail from a poster for the Codesa talks.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Judy Seidman</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Judy Ann Seidman and her artwork embody the feminist maxim that the personal is political, and the political is personal. US-born Seidman is an artist and activist based in South Africa who, for more than four decades, has contributed to defining the iconography of the country’s struggle against apartheid and injustice. </p>
<p>An exhibition at Johannesburg’s Museum Africa, <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2019-12-13-00-drawing-lines-in-art-and-politics">Drawn</a> <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2020-01-09-the-role-of-liberation-culture">Lines</a>, follows her life trajectory, and provides a significant retrospective of her work. Her story is inseparable from the movements she has been part of, which in turn shaped her artistic style and praxis.</p>
<p>Seidman’s artworks are revolutionary weapons. She is behind some of South Africa’s most iconic <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/liberation-struggle-south-africa">liberation struggle</a> images, each of which has a story to tell that is both personal and political. Many of these stories can be found in her self-published memoir, also titled <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Drawn-Lines-autobiography-Judy-%20Seidman/dp/1977644228">Drawn Lines</a>.</p>
<h2>The posters on the wall</h2>
<p>Among the works in the exhibition are the posters for Women’s Day and Solomon Mahlangu – a young man hung by the apartheid regime for his military activism. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307460/original/file-20191217-58329-z654eo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307460/original/file-20191217-58329-z654eo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307460/original/file-20191217-58329-z654eo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307460/original/file-20191217-58329-z654eo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307460/original/file-20191217-58329-z654eo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307460/original/file-20191217-58329-z654eo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1098&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307460/original/file-20191217-58329-z654eo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1098&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307460/original/file-20191217-58329-z654eo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1098&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Women’s rights and liberation have been a constant theme in Seidman’s work.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Judy Seidman</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Seidman made the Women’s Day drawing in 1981 as part of a brief to position women in the struggle. It was inspired by the women who marched to Pretoria on <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/1956-womens-march-pretoria-9-august">9 August 1956</a> to protest the introduction of passes for women. In the liberation movement, the date was celebrated as a ‘national day’ and officially became a public holiday after the end of apartheid.</p>
<p>The words in the poster were developed by the <a href="https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/9039/the-people-shall-govern-medu-art-ensemble-and-the-anti-apartheid-poster">Medu Art Ensemble</a> collective which was based in Botswana and which Seidman joined in 1980: “Now you have touched the women/ you have struck a rock/ you have dislodged a boulder/ you will be crushed.”</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306829/original/file-20191213-85428-l2t8sg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306829/original/file-20191213-85428-l2t8sg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306829/original/file-20191213-85428-l2t8sg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306829/original/file-20191213-85428-l2t8sg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306829/original/file-20191213-85428-l2t8sg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306829/original/file-20191213-85428-l2t8sg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1074&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306829/original/file-20191213-85428-l2t8sg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1074&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306829/original/file-20191213-85428-l2t8sg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1074&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Solomon Mahlangu poster.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Judy Seidman</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They come from the song ‘Wathint’ abafazi, wathint’ imbokodo’ (‘When you strike the women, you have struck a rock’), sung by the marching women in 1956. The original drawing had the woman holding up an <a href="https://theconversation.com/worlds-deadliest-inventor-mikhail-kalashnikov-and-his-ak-47-126253">AK47 rifle</a>, but the collective felt that in the light of increasing raids by the apartheid regime, the picture should not show close alignment with the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/turn-armed-struggle">armed struggle</a>. A broken chain came to replace the gun. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/solomon-kalushi-mahlangu">Solomon Mahlangu</a> poster was designed for the 1982 anniversary of the 19-year-old <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/umkhonto-wesizwe-mk">uMkhonto weSizwe</a> operative’s execution at the hands of the apartheid regime in 1979. </p>
<p>A few hundred copies were silkscreened by Medu members, several of whom were also part of uMkhonto weSizwe structures, with the help of soldiers passing through Botswana. The works were then smuggled into South Africa and illegally displayed by members of the <a href="http://www.saha.org.za/imagesofdefinace/making_posters_in_south_africa_shattering_the_silence.htm">Johannesburg Silkscreen Training Project</a>. They were torn down by the police the next day, but this poster remains one of Seidman’s best known.</p>
<p>Another poster mourns the death of 12 comrades in the <a href="http://sabctrc.saha.org.za/glossary/gaborone_raid.htm?tab=report">Gaborone raid</a> of 1985. Among the dead was <a href="http://www.saha.org.za/imagesofdefinace/making_posters_in_south_africa_shattering_the_silence.htm">Thami Mnyele</a>, a fellow Medu member and an important influence on Seidman’s work and understanding of the art of liberation. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307632/original/file-20191218-11904-1yxi3gt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307632/original/file-20191218-11904-1yxi3gt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307632/original/file-20191218-11904-1yxi3gt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307632/original/file-20191218-11904-1yxi3gt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307632/original/file-20191218-11904-1yxi3gt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307632/original/file-20191218-11904-1yxi3gt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307632/original/file-20191218-11904-1yxi3gt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307632/original/file-20191218-11904-1yxi3gt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The poster announcing Cosatu’s 4th congress in 1991.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Judy Seidman</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Seidman moved to South Africa in 1990 after the unbanning of the liberation organisations. She was commissioned to draw the poster for the 1991 congress of the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/congress-south-african-trade-unions-cosatu">Congress of South African Trade Unions</a>.</p>
<p>She also designed a poster for the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/convention-democratic-south-africa-codesa">Convention for a Democratic South Africa negotiations</a>: a rising sun symbolising a new dawn for the people of the country.</p>
<p>In the early 1990s Seidman and her partner Serge Phetla, an uMkhonto weSizwe combatant, were diagnosed HIV positive. No antiretroviral treatment was available at the time, and their status was not made public for political reasons.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307635/original/file-20191218-11919-1cdp8qe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307635/original/file-20191218-11919-1cdp8qe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307635/original/file-20191218-11919-1cdp8qe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307635/original/file-20191218-11919-1cdp8qe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307635/original/file-20191218-11919-1cdp8qe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307635/original/file-20191218-11919-1cdp8qe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307635/original/file-20191218-11919-1cdp8qe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307635/original/file-20191218-11919-1cdp8qe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cosas Aids poster.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Judy Seidman</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>She increasingly did artworks for Aids activism – among them a 1991 poster for a <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/congress-south-african-students-cosas">Congress of South African Students</a> campaign against Aids. </p>
<p>With the advent of democracy, Seidman came out publicly about living with HIV. Serge died just before the first democratic elections in 1994. An intimate portrait of him reading a copy of the African Communist is part of the exhibition. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307637/original/file-20191218-11924-wd6pqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307637/original/file-20191218-11924-wd6pqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307637/original/file-20191218-11924-wd6pqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307637/original/file-20191218-11924-wd6pqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307637/original/file-20191218-11924-wd6pqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307637/original/file-20191218-11924-wd6pqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307637/original/file-20191218-11924-wd6pqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307637/original/file-20191218-11924-wd6pqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Comrade portrait (Serge)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Judy Seidman</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A life fully lived</h2>
<p>The exhibition provides a chronological unfolding of Seidman’s life. It starts with her time in Lusaka, Zambia, where she arrived for a visit in 1973 after graduating with a Masters in Fine Arts in the US. </p>
<p>Her parents, the Africanist economist <a href="https://africasacountry.com/2019/10/a-living-monument-of-struggle">Anne Willcox Seidman</a> and Bob Seidman were working at the University of Zambia, while her sister Neva was a secretary in the office of the ANC’s external headquarters. Seidman’s first encounter with the ANC was in the context of an exhibition, for which Neva asked her ‘friends’ in the ANC office to help transport her sister’s artworks. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307639/original/file-20191218-11909-z1pww9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307639/original/file-20191218-11909-z1pww9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307639/original/file-20191218-11909-z1pww9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=763&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307639/original/file-20191218-11909-z1pww9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=763&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307639/original/file-20191218-11909-z1pww9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=763&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307639/original/file-20191218-11909-z1pww9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307639/original/file-20191218-11909-z1pww9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307639/original/file-20191218-11909-z1pww9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tribute to John Dube, killed by a letter bomb.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Judy Seidman</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Among them was a young man called <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/boy-adolphus-mvemve-1931-1974">John Dube</a> (JD) whose real name was Boy Mvemve. A few weeks later, he was killed when he opened a letter bomb sent by the apartheid regime. Seidman silkscreened a poster for JD’s funeral. It was to be the first in a long series of drawings she did for the ANC and allied organisations. </p>
<p>In Lusaka, Seidman fell in love with and married historian Neil Parsons and in 1975 they moved to Swaziland where he took up a lecturing post. It’s also where their first daughter was born. </p>
<p>In Swaziland, Seidman worked with the sculptor and writer <a href="https://www.pitikantuli.com/">Pitika Ntuli</a>, whose vision of art and revolution had a great impact on her. Both had studied in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kwame-Nkrumah">Kwame Nkrumah’s</a> Ghana in the early 1960s and had been influenced by Pan-African ideals. </p>
<p>In 1980 Seidman moved to Botswana with her family. She carried with her a letter of introduction from writer and activist Barry Feinberg addressed to Thami Mnyele and <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/mongane-wally-serote-1944">Mongane Wally Serote</a>, then leading figures in Medu. </p>
<p>Medu is a SePedi word meaning ‘roots’ and for Seidman the ensemble’s idea of art as rooted in experience, its explicit commitment to work as a collective and its alignment with South Africa’s black majority were “like coming home”. </p>
<p>This was a time of political and cultural ferment in the liberation movement. The Gaborone Culture and Resistance Festival in <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/culture-resistance-conference-1982">1982</a> marked a significant moment of discussion about the art of liberation. These ideas, Seidman argues, have largely been lost post-1994 as the ANC failed to support the revolutionary culture of the liberation struggle. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307641/original/file-20191218-11946-1v9z15x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307641/original/file-20191218-11946-1v9z15x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307641/original/file-20191218-11946-1v9z15x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307641/original/file-20191218-11946-1v9z15x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307641/original/file-20191218-11946-1v9z15x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=660&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307641/original/file-20191218-11946-1v9z15x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=660&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307641/original/file-20191218-11946-1v9z15x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=660&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A portrait of the artist in front of one of her paintings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Judy Seidman</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Seidman remained in Botswana, by now working within uMkhonto weSizwe structures. This led to the breakdown of her marriage, and her two daughters moved to the UK with their father after their house in Gaborone was petrol bombed in 1986.</p>
<p>At the turn of the century she worked with the <a href="https://khulumani.net/">Khulumani support group</a> to support victims of political violence. She also got involved with the <a href="https://oneinnine.org.za/">One in Nine campaign</a> which campaigns against gender-based violence and whose work forms ‘an exhibition within the exhibition’ with four panels dedicated to it. </p>
<p>The last section, which Seidman dubs the “cultural wall”, showcases recent work associated with music and recent struggles such as #FeesMustFall. </p>
<p>The exhibition underscores the message that, in her life and in her work, Seidman drew a line and has never been afraid of taking sides in ongoing struggles for liberation.</p>
<p><em>Drawn Lines is on at <a href="https://www.gauteng.net/attractions/attraction-museum-africa-jiyp">Museum Africa</a> in Newtown, Johannesburg, until the end of January 2020, with further extensions expected. Admission is free.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128657/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arianna Lissoni is a researcher in the Wits History Workshop, which supported the exhibition.</span></em></p>
A retrospective exhibition displays the key works from the life and times of activist and artist Judy Seidman. She has used political posters as a galvanising force in the fight against injustice.
Arianna Lissoni, Researcher at History Workshop, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/128008
2019-12-08T07:16:07Z
2019-12-08T07:16:07Z
Pop culture: restoring Namibia’s forgotten resistance music
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305340/original/file-20191205-39023-1y08d06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C623%2C4961%2C2673&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The guitar man. 'The chords reached a crescendo as the Casspir drowned the song in its passing,' says the photographer of taking the shot.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Photo courtesy John Liebenberg</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is a rich history of 20th century music in Namibia that was suppressed and all but erased by political forces. Now an archive project called <a href="http://www.stolenmoments.info">Stolen Moments – Namibian Music History Untold</a> is restoring it to the public domain. </p>
<p>It is a national treasure hunt for the Namibian music culture that wasn’t allowed to flourish during <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/namibian-struggle-independence-1966-1990-historical-background">apartheid in Namibia</a> when the country was under white South African control. In the project’s own words, it recovers “the bits and pieces of our musical memory from the 1950s to the late 1980s” by collecting personal stories as well as visual and sound documents.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305142/original/file-20191204-70105-wq8dg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305142/original/file-20191204-70105-wq8dg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305142/original/file-20191204-70105-wq8dg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305142/original/file-20191204-70105-wq8dg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305142/original/file-20191204-70105-wq8dg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305142/original/file-20191204-70105-wq8dg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=990&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305142/original/file-20191204-70105-wq8dg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=990&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305142/original/file-20191204-70105-wq8dg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=990&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A poster for an exhibition of the Stolen Moments archive in London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SOAS Brunei Gallery</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Stolen Moments is the brainchild of a research group composed of academic Aino Moongo, filmmaker Thorsten Schütte and musician Baby Doeseb. Some of the
results of the archive gathering process are already being displayed.</p>
<p>During a 2016 exhibition at the <a href="https://www.iwalewahaus.uni-bayreuth.de/en/index.html">Iwalewa House of Bayreuth University</a> the curator of the project, Moongo, presented <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P10UV7qixoQ">insights</a> into the work in progress. The exhibition was also shown at the <a href="https://baslerafrika.ch/event/exhibition-opening-stolen-moments/">Basler Afrika</a> Bibliographien, at <a href="https://artmap.com/kunstraumkreuzberg/exhibition/stolen-moments-2017">Kunstraum Kreuzberg</a> and the <a href="https://www.soas.ac.uk/gallery/stolen-moments/">Brunei Gallery</a>. Given that “very few Namibian bands made it onto the airwaves or the regional or international stage,” said Moongo, such <a href="https://www.soas.ac.uk/blogs/study/stolen-moments-namibian-music-history-untold-1950-1980/">visibility</a> is a long overdue recognition of a sub-culture. As Moongo <a href="https://www.okayafrica.com/stolen-moments-exhibition-uncovers-the-namibian-music-history-independence-apartheid-london-brunei-gallery/">elaborated</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There are many reasons why you’ve never heard this music before. It was censored, suppressed, prohibited and made almost impossible to listen to. Its creators are either long gone or have given up on music making for reasons of adversity, death and despair. And yet this beautiful music exists with a liveliness, as if it never stopped playing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0778343/">Schütte</a> <a href="http://www.702.co.za/articles/367848/london-exhibition-showcases-music-apartheid-regime-tried-to-suppress-in-namibia">recalls</a> discovering the hidden gems while he was recording a radio promo for a film production at the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation in 2010.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There were a great many artists all over the country from different ethnic groups that were playing and performing, but under circumstances that were very, very difficult … The first big hurdle was that the music of the locals was never considered as anything meaningful that was meant to be preserved.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305153/original/file-20191204-70116-qz8g7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305153/original/file-20191204-70116-qz8g7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305153/original/file-20191204-70116-qz8g7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305153/original/file-20191204-70116-qz8g7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305153/original/file-20191204-70116-qz8g7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305153/original/file-20191204-70116-qz8g7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305153/original/file-20191204-70116-qz8g7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305153/original/file-20191204-70116-qz8g7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A couple dancing at a live music performance in a club.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Photo courtesy Dieter Hinrichs</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Township music</h2>
<p>Until 1960, the so-called <a href="https://www.namibweb.com/hiskat.htm">Old Location</a> had been the biggest settlement of black Namibians in what was then South West Africa. In direct proximity to the “white” parts of the capital, Windhoek, its inhabitants were forcefully resettled to Katutura at the outskirts of town. The Old Location was closed in the mid-1960s. Writing its social history remains work <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309415200_Revisiting_the_Windhoek_Old_Location">in progress</a>.</p>
<p>It had a vibrant inter-ethnic culture, which the apartheid system aimed to destroy through the deliberate segregation of inhabitants into “tribes” and the forced separation of “Coloureds” (mixed-race Namibians) into the new suburb of Khomasdal. Dancing competitions and music performances were an integral part of the weekend life. A young photographer, <a href="http://www.dieter-hinrichs.com">Dieter Hinrichs</a>, documented these events in 1959 and 1960. He donated his rare photos to the project.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305346/original/file-20191205-39032-xf2fun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305346/original/file-20191205-39032-xf2fun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305346/original/file-20191205-39032-xf2fun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305346/original/file-20191205-39032-xf2fun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305346/original/file-20191205-39032-xf2fun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305346/original/file-20191205-39032-xf2fun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305346/original/file-20191205-39032-xf2fun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305346/original/file-20191205-39032-xf2fun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jazz band in the Old Location.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Photo courtesy Dieter Hinrichs </span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With the forced resettlement to <a href="https://www.ohioswallow.com/book/Katutura%3A+A+Place+Where+We+Stay%3A+Life+in+a+Post-Apartheid+Township+in+Namibia">Katutura</a> (which means “a place where we do not stay”) local forms of music did not fade away. Rather, they re-emerged as a poignant form of counter culture, manifesting resilience and perseverance.</p>
<p>Axali Doëseb, co-founder of the legendary band Ugly Creatures as well as the composer of Namibia’s <a href="http://www.nationalanthems.info/na.htm">national anthem</a>, <a href="https://www.namibian.com.na/public/uploads/documents/551bd7b9ce160/TheNamibian_Web_c.pdf">recalled</a> that in the 1960s and 1970s:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>we used to have what you call the ‘klop knock’ music where artists would go from door to door and perform and the audience would give them something.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The <a href="https://cree-records.com/portfolio_page/the-ugly-creatures-creatures-of-the-earth/">Ugly Creatures</a> was founded in 1971 as a high school band in a Lutheran boarding school in a rural setting. They soon became the most popular and the most political local band. But their live performances at rallies held by the liberation movement <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-west-africa-peoples-organisation-swapo">Swapo</a> limited their mobility and career.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305361/original/file-20191205-39018-1wwvxjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305361/original/file-20191205-39018-1wwvxjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305361/original/file-20191205-39018-1wwvxjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305361/original/file-20191205-39018-1wwvxjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305361/original/file-20191205-39018-1wwvxjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305361/original/file-20191205-39018-1wwvxjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305361/original/file-20191205-39018-1wwvxjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305361/original/file-20191205-39018-1wwvxjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A seven single release of Creatures of the Earth by the seminal band The Ugly Creatures.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cree Records</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Exile music</h2>
<p>Political repression paralysed the advancement of Namibian pop music. Many local talents ended abroad. Among them was the late <a href="https://www.namibianewsdigest.com/%EF%BB%BFwillie-mbuende-dies/">Willie Mbuende (1947-2015)</a>, who became an acclaimed bass guitarist in the Nordic countries before returning home in 1989.</p>
<p><a href="http://jacksonkaujeuajr.blogspot.com/">Jackson Kaujeua (1953-2010)</a> grew up in the Old Location. Dubbed “the musical voice of the struggle”, he was the icon of the Namibian music scene abroad. He played a key role in the production of a vinyl record released in 1978 with freedom songs by <a href="https://www.discogs.com/The-Swapo-Singers-One-Namibia-One-Nation-Swapo-Freedom-Songs/release/1809482">The Swapo Singers</a>.</p>
<p>Proclaiming a desire for independence, his song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22_TdHrr05A">The Winds of Change</a> entered the British charts, the only Namibian song to do that to date. Returning to Namibia, he became a popular musical voice during the 1990s. </p>
<p>In 2002 Kaujeua was awarded the inaugural Namibian Lifetime Achievement Award. But he <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/201005310955.html">died</a> in poverty of kidney failure, unable to afford treatment. Despite the crucial role he played as a musical ambassador for the liberation struggle, his post-independence life remained anything but that of an acclaimed artist.</p>
<p>Only in death was he recognised by the political leadership, when the country’s president, prime minister and leading politicians joined thousands of mourners at his <a href="http://www.swapoparty.org/thousands_bid_farewell_to_jk.html">funeral</a>. In 2014 the Windhoek municipality <a href="https://www.namibiansun.com/news/jackson-kaujeua-a-legend-gets-recognised">named a street after him</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305343/original/file-20191205-38984-zj68u6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305343/original/file-20191205-38984-zj68u6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305343/original/file-20191205-38984-zj68u6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305343/original/file-20191205-38984-zj68u6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305343/original/file-20191205-38984-zj68u6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305343/original/file-20191205-38984-zj68u6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305343/original/file-20191205-38984-zj68u6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305343/original/file-20191205-38984-zj68u6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An Old Location dance competition.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Photo courtesy Dieter Hinrichs</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Keeping the musical fire burning</h2>
<p>Sadly, the end of Namibia’s occupation also brought an end to the performances of those who had used their music as a weapon of resistance. But they have not all been forgotten. Some have made themselves heard again by touring the country to keep <a href="https://www.namibianewsdigest.com/%EF%BB%BFdown-musical-memory-lane-bra-sledge-still-keep-the-musical-fire-burning/">“the musical fire burning”</a>.</p>
<p>Dubbed “Namibia’s live music brand of all time”, <a href="https://www.namibianewsdigest.com/%EF%BB%BFdown-music-memory-lane-ugly-creatures-namibias-live-music-brand-of-all-time/">a new formation</a> of the Ugly Creatures reappeared in 2007 at a Windhoek jazz festival, followed by a concert in 2008. The Namibian Annual Music Awards honoured Axali Doëseb 2014 with a <a href="https://www.namibianewsdigest.com/%EF%BB%BFaxali-doeseb-to-be-honoured-as-a-lifetime-achiever-at-the-namas/">lifetime achievement award</a>. Two other <a href="https://southerntimesafrica.com/site/news/namas-honours-music-legends-ou-jomo-axue">legendary artists</a> of the 1970s and 1980s jazz and jive music scene received lifetime awards in 2018.</p>
<p>Finally, some of the most prominent township veteran musicians reconstituted into the Hometown Band. The first public concert was in August 2019. As one of them <a href="https://www.namibian.com.na/192439/archive-read/Hometown-Band-to-preserve-live-music">stated</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A lot of our peers have retired and I thought that if I also retire, it could mean that the music of our generation was going to die. We want to be an inspiration to other musicians and influence people to play music from their hearts.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128008/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henning Melber joined SWAPO in 1974 and still remembers the origins of Ugly Creatures before he was banned in 1975.</span></em></p>
An archive project is restoring the secret history of Namibia’s resistance music culture from the 1950s to the late 1980s – suppressed and censored during apartheid but now touring the world.
Henning Melber, Extraordinary Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of Pretoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/120779
2019-07-23T11:20:35Z
2019-07-23T11:20:35Z
Zuma shows, once again, that he’s adroit at playing to the gallery
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285299/original/file-20190723-110191-19ors8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former President Jacob Zuma is fighting a batttle for political capital.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Kim Ludbrook/Pool</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If there’s one thing South Africans can agree on, it’s that former President Jacob Zuma has always been adept at putting on a show. This has historically served him well – even since he was <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/jacob-zuma-resigns-as-president-of-south-africa-20180214">ousted in 2018</a>. But lately his performance repertoire (and powerful stage) have both been significantly diminished. </p>
<p>It comes as no surprise therefore that he’s resorted to long-standing strategies in his appearance at the <a href="https://www.sastatecapture.org.za/">Zondo Commission</a> of inquiry into corruption. </p>
<p>These days, Zuma is fighting a battle for political capital. To maintain popular support he needs media coverage: he needs to stay visible to stay relevant. It’s a canny calculation: Zuma knows he won’t change his critic’s minds, but he does stand to lose his supporter’s fervour if he is invisible for too long. </p>
<p>To that end, he has deployed a wider strategy. To date, this has mostly taken the form of his infamous December 2018 “Twitter comeback” – taking control of the online narrative through his <a href="https://twitter.com/presjgzuma?lang=en">own social media account</a>. </p>
<p>Starting with a <a href="https://twitter.com/PresJGZuma/status/1073474576334635008">curious video post</a> in which he slowly and repeatedly declared himself to be “the real Jacob Zuma,” he announced that he had</p>
<blockquote>
<p>decided to move with the times, to join this important area of conversation because I hear many people are talking about me.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Since then, his account has rapidly grown in popularity, swiftly amassing a sizeable 318k followers to the Presidency’s 1.1 million (on Twitter, of course, controversy pays off: Helen Zille has 1.3 million). </p>
<h2>Twitter strategy</h2>
<p>Zuma has used his account seemingly tamely, rarely giving any overt political commentary on charges, accusations or machinations of state. Rather, he uses the platform to release video “statements” wishing his followers well over <a href="https://twitter.com/PresJGZuma/status/1077432929649901573">holidays</a> or telling lengthy, often rambling, personal anecdotes. </p>
<p>Typically, these video messages are low-tech and filmed from a living room. This serves up both a veneer of authenticity – a lack of high tech production value intimates we are getting the “real” Zuma – and a faux intimacy. While these messages may seem random and clumsily executed, they strategically portray Zuma as an elder but not elderly: here’s Zuma <a href="https://twitter.com/PresJGZuma/status/1122864484752732161">mock sparring</a> with his son, and here he posts a <a href="https://twitter.com/PresJGZuma/status/1129091438283808770">clip</a> of his daughter’s graduation. </p>
<p>Playing the benign “<em>Baba</em>” (father in isiZulu) serves him well –- an elder statesman and grandfather demands respect, is accorded a certain allowance. Certainly, to critics – often termed “enemies” –- he becomes the butt of a joke. Yet to supporters, he offers an insider look – quite literally, in some videos, a place at his own table. </p>
<p>Some of his most popular <a href="https://twitter.com/PresJGZuma/status/1085511230041870338">Twitter posts</a> include <a href="https://twitter.com/PresJGZuma/status/1093477277038530560">“throwback” photos</a> of his struggle years and current affairs are often used to pointedly recall past exploits. A <a href="https://twitter.com/PresJGZuma/status/1143217537762676738">post</a> on June 24 says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>That Mabana video reminded me of the time we were detained at Hercules Police Station.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s accompanied by an armchair anecdote of how the police used racial racial slurs against him. The story itself ends on a cliffhanger: “I will have to finish this story soon” – eliciting storms of follower requests to “Please do, Baba”.</p>
<p>By tying himself to a narrative of past struggle hero and recalling apartheid-era espionage, Zuma doubles down on painting himself as a survivor of a hostile system, a servant of the struggle. </p>
<p>This tactic was on full display during the Zondo testimony at the Zondo commission. His memory was impeccable when it came to regaling the commission with asides about his role in the struggle and history of coup <a href="https://city-press.news24.com/News/zuma-suicide-bombers-were-brought-into-the-country-to-assassinate-me-20190715">plots against him </a>, but remarkably vague with <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2019-07-17-jacob-zumas-amnesia-has-social-media-up-in-arms/">recollection</a> of any activity relating to corruption. </p>
<p>Such selective memory proffers a winking nod to his supporters, while avoiding being pinned down by all others: a verbal form of his sparring video clips. </p>
<p>This interest in presenting a deep history of alternate Zumas – Jacob the struggle hero, or the trade unionist – is a play that’s being picked up by his Foundation. Currently, they’re <a href="https://twitter.com/PresJGZuma/status/1134341542917881856">requesting essay submissions</a> from ordinary South Africans on the “impact and influence of the former President.” </p>
<p>One can only imagine the potential contributions, which is perhaps why they stipulate that submissions must include a one-paragraph resume.</p>
<h2>Stricken hero</h2>
<p>In line with the frequent references, both on social media and during the Zondo testimony, to his <a href="https://twitter.com/PresJGZuma/status/1085511230041870338">struggle hero credentials</a> and various plots he has survived, Zuma has also been at pains to frame himself as a poor man – his wealth reduced and sucked dry by his service to the cause. Who, after all, is not feeling the pinch in these trying times? The fact that the times are almost uniformly attributable to Zuma himself is a wrinkle conveniently left unironed. </p>
<p>Despite this newfound humble presentation, spectacle is never far from Zuma’s core repertoire. At Zondo, this was outsourced to full effect to a vocal supporter gallery, including the deployment of a <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/state-capture/2154719/zuma-gets-standing-ovation-as-he-arrives-at-zondo-commission/">chillingly effective slow clap and chant</a>. The facts against Zuma may well stubbornly remain, but the performance must go on.</p>
<p>Much more effective than mere “yes men”, the militant public show of loyalty is what carries Zuma’s public relations momentum from his curated Twitter feed. As he is well aware, the Zondo Commission will be reduced to headlines, grab quotes and iconic images of many South Africans. For most, it will simply be represented by viral clips and memes. Nothing translates as well as a catchy entrance and, once again, Zuma got his takeaway moment. </p>
<h2>Laugh or cry</h2>
<p>This brings us to Zuma’s second performance strategy: above all else, keep them laughing. </p>
<p>Zuma is infamous for deploying a chuckle: the hollow sound of his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvHVkFvecT4">parliamentary laughter</a> still haunts much of the South African consciousness. His ability to laugh off even the most gruesome accusations has continued in his social media performance. Referencing The Sunday Times accusation of him having a secret property in Dubai, he <a href="https://twitter.com/PresJGZuma/status/1115524279821635584">tweeted</a> no April 9th:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Sigh! …I owe millions in legal fees… I’ve asked you to assist with that one title deed in order for me to sell the house.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Before commencing his Zondo testimony (during which his Twitter account has strategically fallen silent) he <a href="https://twitter.com/PresJGZuma/status/1150364378941837312">posted a video </a> captioned, simply:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I thought I should brighten up your day.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In it, we see a jovial Zuma outside a door, pantomiming the protest slogan “Zuma must fall” in time to a short, improvised dance. Immediately, the tweet went viral (over 590 000 views to date), aided by media personalities such as “The Kiffness”, a social-savvy comedian, who remixed it into a <a href="https://twitter.com/TheKiffness/status/1150674369187913728">catchy music video.</a> </p>
<p>Zuma’s surefire knowledge of providing the base for viral content ensures his continued relevancy in public discourse. In this, he’s aided and abetted by SA media, <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2019/07/16/cartoon-jz-s-many-cards">cartoonists</a> and comedians, who can’t resist the chance to make him the butt of their own jokes. </p>
<p>By positioning himself as a loveable granddad “Baba” to supporters and the punchline of a joke to his opposition, Zuma adroitly defangs the very serious charges against him. </p>
<p>After all, the joker can say anything, so long as he keeps you laughing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120779/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carla Lever does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
By positioning himself as a loveable granddad to supporters and the punchline of a joke to his opposition, Zuma adroitly defangs the very serious charges against him.
Carla Lever, Research Fellow at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, University of Cape Town
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/116137
2019-05-20T14:26:57Z
2019-05-20T14:26:57Z
LGBTQ coin glosses over radical struggles: When did gay liberation come to mean equality?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275175/original/file-20190517-69169-11jx73z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The first gay liberation protest in Canada in 1971 in Ottawa in the pouring rain. Centre: Toronto Gay Action members Brian Waite (left) with Andre Ouellette (right). George Hislop, is on the extreme right.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jearld Frederick Moldenhaue</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Royal Canadian Mint recently <a href="https://www.mint.ca/store/microsite/?site=equality&lang=en_CA&rcmeid=van_equality">released a coin, “Hold onto Love,”</a> that celebrates <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/rights-lgbti-persons.html">50 years of equality</a> for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people in Canada. The unveiling ceremony was disrupted by a small group of LGBTQ protesters who rejected the federal government’s claim that LGBTQ rights started with <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/omnibus-bill-a-new-era-in-canada">Canada’s 1969 omnibus bill (Bill C-150).</a></p>
<p>The omnibus bill modified previous Criminal Code regulations concerning some same-sex sexual acts and, for some, marks the starting point of Canada’s march toward LGBTQ equality. </p>
<p>But credit for significant gains made over the past half century, the protesters argue, belongs to the lesbian, bisexual, trans, and gay people on the ground whose long and hard public campaigns for equality and justice began in late 1960s and are ongoing to this day.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274245/original/file-20190514-60549-o2hgjy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274245/original/file-20190514-60549-o2hgjy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274245/original/file-20190514-60549-o2hgjy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274245/original/file-20190514-60549-o2hgjy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274245/original/file-20190514-60549-o2hgjy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274245/original/file-20190514-60549-o2hgjy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274245/original/file-20190514-60549-o2hgjy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Promo for the ‘Hold onto Love’ coin from the Royal Canadian Mint’s website.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Royal Canadian Mint</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lost in the battle over who deserves credit for what’s been achieved is early grassroots activists’ much more radical vision of sexual liberation. </p>
<p>This vision emerged at the end of the 1960s, at the same moment <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/unfinished-revolution/2F1C7430E10B196CA6D18F071DCC522F">Pierre Elliot Trudeau declared</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“There is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.” </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>A radical movement towards liberation</h2>
<p>As the omnibus bill wended its way through Parliament, a new kind of gay activism was taking shape in the English-speaking world. It drew inspiration not from Trudeau, but from Marxism, socialism and the African-American civil rights, Algeria’s decolonization and women’s liberation movements.</p>
<p>Movement activists called for much more than equality. They strove to create a new society that rejected all forms of hierarchical, exploitative relationships.</p>
<p>In the United Kingdom, <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/gay-liberation-front-manifesto">London’s Gay Liberation Front</a> called for lesbians and gays to “rid society of the gender-role system which is at the root of our oppression.” In his 1969 <a href="http://www.againstequality.org/files/refugees_from_amerika_a_gay_manifesto_1969.pdf">“Gay Manifesto,”</a> American bisexual Carl Witman recast same-sex attraction as a positive attribute. “Our love for each other is a good thing, not an unfortunate thing,” he argued. Heterosexual sex, on the other hand, Witman said, was troubling. Sex is “aggression for the male chauvinist,” and an “obligation for traditional women.” He described marriage as “a rotten, oppressive institution,” a “contract which smothers both people, denies needs, and places impossible demands,” especially on women. </p>
<p>Indeed, New York-based <a href="https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/radicalesbianswoman.html">Radicalesbians</a> described lesbianism as “the rage of all women condensed to the point of explosion.” Radical gay men and lesbians often lived, played and organized separately, but they agreed that traditional sex and gender roles oppressed everyone. </p>
<p>According to Radicalesbians, ridding society of sex and gender hierarchies would free humans to discover their authentic, loving selves:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“In a society in which men do not oppress women, and sexual expression is allowed to follow feelings …the categories of homosexuality and heterosexuality would disappear.” </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Canadian activists started tamely</h2>
<p>Canadian activists were a little slow to catch up to their radical counterparts in the United States and United Kingdom. The first large-scale organized protest was entirely in keeping with the equality framework the new coin celebrates. <a href="https://www.ottawamatters.com/remember-this/remember-this-gay-liberation-1027255">Held on the steps of Parliament in August 1971</a>, lesbians and gays called for the equalization of age-of-consent laws (one could not give consent to having sex with someone of the same sex until reaching the age of 21). </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275166/original/file-20190517-69209-7exp4e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275166/original/file-20190517-69209-7exp4e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275166/original/file-20190517-69209-7exp4e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275166/original/file-20190517-69209-7exp4e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275166/original/file-20190517-69209-7exp4e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275166/original/file-20190517-69209-7exp4e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275166/original/file-20190517-69209-7exp4e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275166/original/file-20190517-69209-7exp4e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first gay liberation protest in Canada. Parliament Hill, Ottawa, 28 August 1971.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Canadian Museum for Human Rights</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rather than denounce the military as did their American counterparts who tied gay liberation to the struggle against imperialism, they demanded the end of their exclusion from it. Instead of calling marriage a rotten institution, Canadian activists insisted on the right to enjoy the financial and other benefits it conferred. </p>
<p>Seen through the lens of the 1971 “We Demand” protest, 1969 really does look like the starting point of five decades of the struggle for lesbian and gay equality in Canada.</p>
<p>Those same protesters were about to become much more radical in their politics, however. Frustrated that the media refused to cover their protest or report their demands, they launched <a href="https://www.uwo.ca/pridelib/bodypolitic/bphome.htm"><em>The Body Politic</em>,</a> a newspaper that became one of the most important journals of the international gay liberationist movement.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275174/original/file-20190517-69199-1vncvou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275174/original/file-20190517-69199-1vncvou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275174/original/file-20190517-69199-1vncvou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275174/original/file-20190517-69199-1vncvou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275174/original/file-20190517-69199-1vncvou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275174/original/file-20190517-69199-1vncvou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275174/original/file-20190517-69199-1vncvou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ottawa protest, August 28th, 1971: Charles Hill, head of the University of Toronto’s Student Homophile Association read the text of demands for legislative changes that discriminated against gay and lesbian Canadians.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.jearldmoldenhauer.com/ottawa-demonstration-august-28-1971/">Jearld Frederick Moldenhauer</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Equity replaced liberation</h2>
<p>Published from 1971 to 1987, <em>The Body Politic</em> contributors offered incisive critiques of the nuclear family, the church and the state as the key proponents of gender and sexual oppression. Radical liberationists tried to live their ideals by creating collective organizations, including households. </p>
<p>Yet the persistence of everyday forms of discrimination could not be ignored. Bill C-150 left intact the right to discriminate against Canadians on the basis of sexual orientation. </p>
<p>Lesbians and gays were fired simply for being gay. The robust social benefits citizenship conferred to heterosexuals such as the survivor’s pension (then called widow’s pension) were denied to same-sex couples. </p>
<p>When in 1982, the same Pierre Elliot Trudeau patriated Canada’s Constitution, protection from discrimination based on sexual orientation was deemed unworthy of inclusion in the <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-15.html">Charter of Rights and Freedoms</a>. </p>
<p>And lesbians and gays remained barred from joining the military. It would take another 20 years before all of the demands made in 1971 would be met.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275176/original/file-20190517-69178-11e7z44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275176/original/file-20190517-69178-11e7z44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275176/original/file-20190517-69178-11e7z44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275176/original/file-20190517-69178-11e7z44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275176/original/file-20190517-69178-11e7z44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275176/original/file-20190517-69178-11e7z44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275176/original/file-20190517-69178-11e7z44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People from the Blacks Lives Matter movement march during the Pride parade in Toronto, Sunday, June 25, 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Mark Blinch</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Radicals dreamed of liberation, but what we got was equality. How we got it, the protesters rightly point out, is due far more to the effort of activists on the ground than to prime ministerial pronouncements on the Hill. </p>
<p>But the real missing element in this story is the disappearance of the radical vision of a society based on principles of love and human dignity, a society that rejects hierarchy, rejects sexism, rejects racism, rejects gains made by one at the expense of another. If these are the principles that guide us, then the link between LBGTQ experience and the struggles of other forms of sexual marginalization and oppression become obvious. </p>
<p>The ease with which queer life has been and still can be disregarded shares a common root with the disregard we see today toward, for example, murdered and missing girls and women and sex workers of all genders and orientations. Those of us who have made appreciable gains from 50 years of slow but steady progress must use their new-found privilege to shine a light on the hierarchies of oppression that persist.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116137/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elise Chenier receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p>
Early gay liberation activists paved the way for today’s equity policies
Elise Chenier, Professor, Simon Fraser University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/103700
2018-10-02T13:55:29Z
2018-10-02T13:55:29Z
For Africa’s people, culture and heritage are a form of liberation
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238305/original/file-20180927-48641-ggv9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Malagasy people take part in famadihana, the ritual of the dead, to honour their ancestors.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tee La Rosa/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Today, much effort is made to retell the stories of political activists who advanced the liberation of South Africa from apartheid. The heroic actions of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/stephen-bantu-biko">Steve Biko</a>, <a href="http://www.sacp.org.za/main.php?ID=2294">Chris Hani</a>,<a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/page/biography">Nelson Mandela</a>, <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2018-09-26-nathi-mthetwa-to-visit-mama-winnies-brandfort-home-to-mark-her-82nd-birthday/">Winnie Madikizela Mandela</a>, as well as lesser known activists like <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-09-20-declassified-apartheid-profits-who-killed-dulcie-september/">Dulcie September</a>, are being excavated. They’re presented in memoirs, recovered sites and memorabilia. </p>
<p>The thinking is that the journeys, actions and philosophies of these activists are the nation’s “liberation” heritage. But the reality is that the country’s “liberation” heritage goes much further back, and far deeper. For centuries, ordinary South Africans have used culture to liberate themselves from the yoke of oppression. </p>
<p>In this, they echo Africans the world over who have employed language, belief, ritual, clothes, hairstyles, stories and food to resist and transform colonisers’ religions and cultural practices. From <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/candomble/">Candomble</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2007/mar/17/healthandwellbeing.features4">Capoeira</a> in Brazil to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/santeria/">Santeria</a> in Cuba, from blues and jazz music among African-Americans in the southern states of the US, to the <a href="http://chase.be/blog/discovering-dub-culture-and-its-influence-on-music-at-couleur-caf/">dub culture</a> of black British Jamaicans in the United Kingdom, Africans have steadfastly responded to oppression through culture. </p>
<p>In the African diaspora of the southwest Indian Ocean, islanders have relied on culture in times of slavery and colonisation. The Malagasy still practice rituals that revive belief, emphasise self-knowing and obtain the ancestors’ blessings. Through <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/18/travel/madagascar-turning-bones/index.html">famadihana</a>, the ritual of the dead, the Malagasy honour their ancestors. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10702890490950574">Mauritians</a> also commune with their ancestors. Every January 2, Mauritians of African descent visit the graves of their loved ones. There they place cigarettes, alcohol, food and special gifts; things that their loved ones would have enjoyed. The ancestors are regularly spoken about and unusual events are discussed as potential intervention on the part of the dead.</p>
<p>Evidence of culture as liberation can also be seen today in the revival of indigenous dress and <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/capetimes/news/deep-rooted-politics-of-hair-2096005">hair styling</a>. These communicate alternative worldviews and challenge dominant style and beauty norms, globalising the rich material and symbolic culture of Africans. </p>
<p>South Africans are no different. They also use ritual and other cultural practices to respond to and challenge oppression. This is revealed in a recent <a href="https://www.heraldlive.co.za/news/2018-09-24-east-cape-heritage-sites-in-state-of-disrepair/">survey</a> by graduate students from Nelson Mandela University in the Eastern Cape province. It reveals the liberating potential of intangible cultural heritage. </p>
<h2><strong>The case of South Africa</strong></h2>
<p>In South Africa, inhabitants developed beliefs and practices that breached already porous “racial” boundaries. The <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a> state could not manage such practices. It was impossible to police millions of people into cultural submission. No amount of ideological work and violence could achieve that feat. </p>
<p>For example, some Christian churches advanced apartheid ideology but could not stop people from venerating their ancestors or blending indigenous and colonial <a href="http://www.martinwest.uct.ac.za/exhibits/show/african_independent_churches_i/introduction">belief systems</a>. </p>
<p>Ironically and despite the social fragmentation caused by apartheid, a rich cultural heritage flourished in South Africa. The reason? Apartheid’s ideologues depended on the preservation of culture, believing it to be necessary for achieving segregated development.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/MandelaUni/videos/1193287164181845/">public lecture</a>, the South African storyteller, playwright, director and author, <a href="https://www.news24.com/Video/SouthAfrica/News/heres-why-gcina-mhlophe-wants-south-african-stories-to-be-told-and-retold-20151124">Gcina Mhlophe</a> said that heritage is key to South Africans’ dignity, identity and sanity. She added that through songs loosely described as “spirit callers”, Xhosa and Zulu people can connect to an <a href="http://www.findtripinfo.com/south-africa/articles/xhosa-culture-ac004.html">ancestral world</a> that lies beyond their present, often difficult reality. </p>
<p>Burning <a href="http://www.thebotanicalsource.com/imphepho-helichrysum-odoratissimum-p-40.html">imphepho</a>, a herb which the Nguni people use as a ritual incense with the purpose of invoking the ancestors, some South Africans are able to connect with the world of the dead. </p>
<p>Today, imphepho still provides many with a means to escape the realities of life after apartheid, as it spiritually transports believers to a world beyond the present reality. The smoke from the herb facilitates communion for believers with spirit beings in the ancestral realm. </p>
<p>In some groups, grandparents are equally important to the liberation process. Their stories and ancient ritual practices activate memory, evoke symbolism and impart wisdom. Their sharp admonishments also liberate through humour. For instance and as Mhlophe tells, grandparents are known to have scolded by saying, “you can never earn a cow by sleeping” (meaning that one cannot achieve greatness by being lazy) or, “you are a like a buck in an endless forest” (referring to someone who is shiftless and indecisive). </p>
<h2>Cultural riches</h2>
<p>Understanding, valuing and embracing these parts of South Africa’s cultural heritage is crucial. The richness of those cultures and their persistence to this day, compels a rethinking of the idea of liberation heritage. </p>
<p>The cultural evidence shows that, for centuries, Africans and South Africans have been liberating themselves through their heritage of music, song, dance, poetry and language. Instead of promoting a narrow conception of freedom, those in power should use this knowledge to diversify perceptions of liberation in the country.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103700/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rosabelle Boswell receives funding from the South African National Research Foundation. The South African research mentioned in this piece was funded by LOTTO.</span></em></p>
Africans have steadfastly responded to oppression through culture.
Rosabelle Boswell, Professor of Anthropology and Executive Dean of Arts, Nelson Mandela University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/103694
2018-10-01T16:25:45Z
2018-10-01T16:25:45Z
It’s time to stop the appropriation of South Africa’s visual archive
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238091/original/file-20180926-48665-1avr8x9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Graeme Williams's photograph he took in Thokoza township, near Johannesburg, in 1991. Police watch an ANC rally.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Graeme Williams</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/13/t-magazine/hank-willis-thomas-gi-joes.html">interview</a> published in the <em>New York Times</em>, American visual artist <a href="https://www.hankwillisthomas.com/">Hank Willis Thomas</a> describes his work as “collaborative storytelling”. He routinely uses archival images in his work, sometimes making only minor changes to the existing image. This method has sparked a controversy about whether his practice should instead be understood as appropriation. </p>
<p>Thomas has produced a large body of work that focuses on South African history. Much of it draws directly on images taken by South African photographers. <a href="https://graemewilliams.co.za/">Graeme Williams</a> iconic image, “South Africa, Thokoza Township, Johannesburg, 1991, Police watch an ANC rally while children taunt them by toyi-toying on the other side of the fence”, is at the centre of a storm provoked by Thomas’s decision to use it in an artwork.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Photo taken at the Joburg Art Fair of Hank Willis Thomas’s version of Williams’s colour original.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Graeme Williams</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Thomas’s piece was exhibited by the Goodman Gallery at the recent Joburg Art Fair and priced at USD$36 000. His “collaboration” with Williams took place without the photographer’s consent. He didn’t acknowledge the source of the image; nor did he intend to share the profits from the sale of the work. </p>
<p>For the most part artists and the art world scoff at the notion of responsibility, the need to ask permission, or any kinds of considerations that would delimit creative freedom. </p>
<p>However, Thomas is ostensibly a different kind of artist. His work has centred on issues of race and social justice. In 2016, he and Eric Gottesman founded <a href="https://forfreedoms.org/"><em>For Freedoms</em></a>, an artist-run super Political Action Committee. It has produced and installed 50 billboards in 50 states to contest the current political regime in the US.</p>
<p>Thomas is profoundly critical of extractive economies that take black people’s bodies and lives, using them for commercial gain without ever recognising them as individuals. </p>
<p>Much, if not most, of Thomas’s work is indebted to the photographers from whose archives he derives not only his inspiration, but also the raw material for his art. His failure to give proper credit comes off as arrogant and hypocritical. </p>
<h2>The story of Ernest Cole</h2>
<p>In the abstract, the collective work of photographers who produced the visual archive of life under apartheid could be understood as “collaborative storytelling”. But the photographs that constitute this archive were taken by individual photographers, many of whom remain unrecognised. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/ernest-cole">Ernest Cole</a> is one example. He was born in 1940 in Eersterust, a township near Pretoria. In 1958, he joined the staff of <em>Drum Magazine</em> and went on to produce brilliant and painful photographs of life under apartheid. </p>
<p>In 1966, he went into exile and spent the next 20 years moving between the US and Europe, where he continued to work as a photographer. His book, <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-11-30-photographer-ernest-cole-of-bondage-and-freedom-discovery-of-trove-of-negatives-a-game-changer/"><em>House of Bondage</em></a> (1967) was a landmark publication. It was the first book by a black South African photographer to document everyday life under apartheid. </p>
<p>The book contains almost 200 black and white photographs that Cole took in townships, city streets and mining compounds – and in prisons, where he used a hidden camera. One of Thomas’s most effective and chilling works is his sculptural rendition of Cole’s <a href="https://www.magnumphotos.com/photographer/ernest-cole/">image</a> of a long row of naked miners, their arms raised above their heads, photographed during a medical inspection at a mining compound. </p>
<p>Thomas’s reworking of the photograph shows only the heads and arms of the miners. The remainder of their bodies have been swallowed up by the white wall-like structure within which they are embedded. This work can be read as a critique of racial capitalism and of the ways in which black people’s bodies are consumed by the violence of white supremacy. </p>
<p>However, this and other readings of the work are possible only because I recognise the image it draws from, and to some degree replicates. Its power derives from the connection between the sculpture and the photograph. </p>
<p>It cannot be assumed that Cole’s photograph, which many people consider an iconic image of the structural violence of the apartheid state, will be recognised by everyone who views it. Nor will most viewers know where it was taken or who the photographer was, without a caption to provide this detail. It is even less likely to be recognised given that the photograph, which provides the conceptual ground for Thomas’s work, is effectively submerged within the sculpture. </p>
<p>As art historian Kerr Houston <a href="http://www.bmoreart.com/2014/07/recasting-the-past-hank-willis-thomas-in-south-africa.html">notes</a> in his review of <a href="http://www.goodman-gallery.com/exhibitions/383">“History Doesn’t Laugh”</a>, Thomas’s 2014 solo show at the Goodman Gallery, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>His decision to focus on gestures apparently led him to jettison much of the rest of the original photographs – and the resulting loss is considerable. Cole’s photograph of the miners, for instance, pictures a row of papers that stand behind each man – and that implicitly complete their dehumanisation, converting them into mere data in the larger ledger of labour. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Thomas’s work, titled <a href="https://www.artsy.net/artwork/hank-willis-thomas-raise-up">“Raise Up”</a>, omits Cole’s original caption, “During group medical examination the nude men are herded through a string of doctor’s offices”. Cole himself was extremely anxious that his images be viewed in context; he preferred the photo essay form to the single image. </p>
<h2>Racial capitalism</h2>
<p>The debate about the right to make use of already existing images has drawn attention to the significance and value of South Africa’s photographic heritage. </p>
<p>It also casts light on just how difficult it is to critique globalised racial capitalism from within the art market, itself a system that serves to replicate the inequalities Thomas is seeking to contest through his work. </p>
<p>Acknowledging the source of the images he uses in his work more fully would amplify rather than diminish the power of Thomas’s political art. Understanding the context in which an image was made is critical for interpreting its significance. And, by engaging with the photographers, requesting permission to use of their work, and sharing the financial rewards and accolades this truly collaborative work would attract, artists like Thomas could begin the process of honouring South African photographers’ legacies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103694/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kylie Thomas receives research funding from the National Research Foundation, South Africa, and the British Academy's programme for International Visiting Researchers. All views expressed in this piece are her own.</span></em></p>
Acknowledging the source of the images would amplify rather than diminish the power of Hank Willis Thomas’s political art.
Kylie Thomas, Associate Researcher at the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice at the University of the Free State, University of the Free State
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/94300
2018-04-03T13:03:05Z
2018-04-03T13:03:05Z
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela: revolutionary who kept the spirit of resistance alive
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212924/original/file-20180403-189807-1gv4h4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African liberation struggle icon Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has died at the age of 81.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Jon Hrusha</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>No other woman – in life and after – occupies the place that <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/winnie-madikizela-mandela">Winnie Madikizela-Mandela</a> does in South African politics. A stalwart of the African National Congress (ANC), she nevertheless stands above, and at times outside, the party. Her iconic status transcends political parties and geographical boundaries, generations and genders. Poets have <a href="http://alicewalkersgarden.com/2016/09/winnie-mandela-we-love-you/">honoured her</a>, writers have <a href="http://panmacmillan.co.za/catalogue/the-cry-of-winnie-mandela/">immortalised her</a> and photographers have <a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/winnie-mandela?sort=mostpopular&mediatype=photography&phrase=winnie%20mandela&family=editorial">adored her</a>. </p>
<p>Her life has been overburdened by tragedies and dramas, and by the expectations of a world hungry for godlike heroes on whom to pin all its dreams, and one-dimensional villains on whom to pour its rage. Yet perhaps it is in the smaller and more intimate stories of our stumbling to make a better world that we are best able to recognise and appreciate the meaning of the life of Madikizela-Mandela. </p>
<p>In her particular life, we may see more clearly the violence wrought by colonialism and apartheid, the profound consequences of fraternal political movements to whom women were primarily ornamental and, yes, the tragic mistakes made in the crucible of civil war. </p>
<p>Her political power stemmed from the visceral connection that she was able to make between the everyday lives of black people in a racist state, and her own individual life. State power, in all its vicious dimensions, was exaggerated in its response to her indomitable will – and in its stark visibility, personified. </p>
<p>Fearless in the face of torture, imprisonment, banishment and betrayal, she stood firm in her conviction that apartheid could be brought down. She said what she liked, and bore the consequences. Her very life was a form of bearing witness to the brutality of the system. </p>
<h2>A life of misrecognition</h2>
<p>Many obituaries will outline the broad sweep of her life; few will mark the extent to which her revolutionary ideas were shaped before she even met Nelson Mandela. To most of her social circle in the 1950s, for a long time into the 1980s, and certainly for Nelson Mandela’s biographers, Madikizela-Mandela was a young rural naif who charmed the most eligible (married) man in town.</p>
<p>This way of seeing her as primarily beautiful, and not as an emerging political figure, has coloured both contemporaneous accounts of Madikizela-Mandela (for she was surely too young and beautiful to have a serious political idea) as well as scholarly accounts of the period (which focused on the thoughts and actions of men). </p>
<p>This misrecognition resonated in the ANC, which had no way of accommodating Madikizela-Mandela’s political qualities other than by casting her in the familiar tropes of wife and mother. Astutely, she embraced the role of mother and wife of a political leader and fashioned it into a platform for her own variant of radicalism, drawing on recent memories of the forcible dispossession of land and its impact on the Eastern Cape peasantry, and <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/definition-black-consciousness-bantu-stephen-biko-december-1971-south-africa">black consciousness</a>. </p>
<p>She kept those traditions alive in the ANC, especially in the everyday politics of the townships, when the leadership of the party was crafting new forms of non-racialism and at times vilifying black consciousness. Even though she was not part of the inner circle of the black consciousness movement, being older than the students leading it at its height, she was an ally in words and spirit. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212927/original/file-20180403-189801-16jx8st.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212927/original/file-20180403-189801-16jx8st.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=854&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212927/original/file-20180403-189801-16jx8st.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=854&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212927/original/file-20180403-189801-16jx8st.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=854&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212927/original/file-20180403-189801-16jx8st.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1073&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212927/original/file-20180403-189801-16jx8st.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1073&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212927/original/file-20180403-189801-16jx8st.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1073&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Madikizela-Mandela in a T-shirt bearing the image of Chris Hani.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Kim Ludbrook</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the tumult after the <a href="http://overcomingapartheid.msu.edu/sidebar.php?id=65-258-3">1976 uprising</a>, she built a bridge between different political factions. In the early 1990s, when Nelson Mandela was urging armed youths to give up violent strategies, it was Madikizela-Mandela they called on (along with the then leader of the South African Communist Party <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/thembisile-chris-hani">Chris Hani</a>) to defend their change in tactics. </p>
<p>She played a similar role in brokering between moderates and radicals in the ANC and its breakaways up until her death. This was a form of gendered politics made possible by her status as mother of the nation, uniting warring sons and holding together her political family, even if peace was maintained only in her presence. </p>
<h2>White power and black suffering</h2>
<p>Winnie Madikizela was born in a rural Eastern Cape village called Bizana in September 1936. Her parents, Columbus and Gertrude, were teachers and her childhood was marked by the stern Methodism of her mother and the radical Africanist orientation of her father. </p>
<p>Rural life, with its entrenched gender roles, shaped her childhood. Not only was she aware of her mother’s desire to bear another son, but she and her sisters were expected to care for their male siblings. She was barely eight when her mother died months after giving birth to Winnie’s brother. Her childhood was cut short, and she had to leave school for six months to work in the fields and to carry out, with her sisters, all the daily chores of the household, from preparing food to cleaning. In her large and rambunctious family in which her parents upheld discipline with physical punishment, she learned to defend herself with her fists, if necessary.</p>
<p>Her rural background made her aware of land dispossession as a central question of freedom. By her own account, she learnt about the racialised system of power early in her life. From her father, she learnt about the Xhosa wars against the colonisers, and later would imagine herself as picking up where her ancestors <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Part-My-Soul-Went-Him/dp/0393302903">had failed</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If they failed in those nine Xhosa wars, I am one of them of them and I will start from where those Xhosas left off and get my land back.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>She was to retain the theme of land dispossession by colonialism throughout her political career. Associated with this was the idea that race was central to colonialism. Taught by her grandmother that the source of black suffering was white power, her framing of politics was defined completely by the ways in which her family understood the relations of colonialism, and by their personal experiences of humiliation. </p>
<p>As with many other ANC members with Eastern Cape roots, she did not think of urban struggles as the only space of resistance, or workers as the only agents of change. She <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=HD7U2a1Sp-0C&pg=PA34&lpg=PA34&dq=The+white+makes+a+mistake,+thinking+the+tribal+black+is+subservient+and+docile.&source=bl&ots=1YSWJjmA1F&sig=I1HuHC3iaevTwHkDcAgd1P6rMfI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjW4JyJ2p3aAhVmC8AKHSnXBlIQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=The%20white%20makes%20a%20mistake%2C%20thinking%20the%20tribal%20black%20is%20subservient%20and%20docile.&f=false">warned</a>, in 1985, that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The white makes a mistake, thinking the tribal black is subservient and docile. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Militant to the core</h2>
<p>After six short years together, Madikizela-Mandela’s husband, Nelson, was sentenced to <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/news/entry/nelson-mandela-sentenced-to-life-imprisonment-44-years-ago">life imprisonment</a>. By this stage, she too was inextricably involved in the national liberation movement, politics with single parenting. She was attuned to the mood of people, and was more of an empathic leader than a theorist or tactician. </p>
<p>She was an effective speaker, and had a gift for winning over an audience. Adelaide Joseph, a friend and fellow ANC activist, <a href="http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Part-of-My-Soul-Went-with-Him/">recalls</a> that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>when she made her first public speech…right on the spot, while she was speaking, the women composed a song for Winnie Mandela. And they started to sing right in the hall.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>She joined the ANC Women’s League and the <a href="http://www.historicalpapers.wits.ac.za/?inventory/U/collections&c=AD1137/R/">Federation of South African Women</a>, and participated in several campaigns. She was militant to the core. On one occasion, when a policeman arrived at her house with a summons and dared to pull her arm, she assaulted him and had to defend herself in court for the action.</p>
<p>She was far from being a bystander, or a passive wife patiently waiting for her husband’s release from prison. In her autobiography, Madikizela-Mandela credits several other women for influencing her politically. Among these were Lilian Ngoyi, Florence Matomela, Frances Baard and Kate Molale, all leaders of the Federation. </p>
<p>For her, they were the “top of the ANC hierarchy” although at the time no women were in fact in any formal leadership positions in the ANC. The ANC only <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/content/women-and-african-national-congress-1912-1943">allowed women to become full members in 1943</a>, and during the 1950s, women were locked in an intense battle for recognition within the movement. </p>
<p>In the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/anc-womens-league-ancwl">ANC Women’s League</a> and in the Federation, she held positions as chairperson of her branch in Orlando, and was a member of their provincial and national executives. In the 1970s, with her close friend Fatima Meer, she formed the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/organisations/black-womens-federation">Black Women’s Federation</a>. It was a short lived organisation with few campaigns, but signalled an adherence to the new township based politics that was sweeping the country. </p>
<p>Her mode of work in any case was not that of painstaking organisation-building; she was more capable as a public speaker and as someone who could connect with people in the harsh conditions of life in apartheid’s townships. She attended funerals and counselled families, acts of public courage that sustained activists. She offered a form of intimate political leadership, instinctively aligning herself with people in distress. </p>
<p>Gender was her political resource, enabling her to draw on effective qualities to form political communities and providing a mode in which she could enter into the lives of people in the townships. She embraced the role of mother and wife of a political leader and fashioned it into a platform from which she challenged the apartheid state. </p>
<h2>Banishment and brutality</h2>
<p>If the apartheid state had hoped to break her, they failed. She was fearless in the face of the state’s attempts to silence her. Her home was repeatedly invaded and searched, and she was arrested, assaulted and imprisoned several times. Then, in 1977, in an act of extreme cruelty, she was served with a banishment order to a place in the Free State called Brandfort – a place she had never heard of nor had she ever visited. </p>
<p>It was a horrendous uprooting from her family and community in Soweto, a form of exile that she described as “my little Siberia.” Madikizela-Mandela grasped very clearly the power that could derive from associating actions against her with actions against the nation. As <a href="http://www.storiadelledonne.it/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Hassim2014.pdf">she put it</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>When they send me into exile, it’s not me as an individual they are sending. They think that with me they can also ban the political ideas. But that is a historic impossibility… I am of no importance to them as an individual. What I stand for is what they want to banish. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But although the state did not break Winnie, by her own account it did brutalise her. Talking about her long period of solitary confinement and torture in 1969, she told a journalist that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>that imprisonment of eighteen months in solitary confinement did actually change me … We were so brutalised by that experience that I then believed in the language of violence and the only to deal with, to fight, apartheid was through the same violence they were unleashing against us and that is how one gets affected by that type of brutality. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The consequences were awful, not just for her but also for <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-news/graduations/2014---2012/biography-paul-verryn.html">Paul Verryn</a>, and especially for the families of <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/stompie-seipeis-murderer-goes-jail">Stompie Seipei</a> and <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/dr-abu-baker-asvat">Abu Asvat</a>. This period in her life, and in South African politics generally, is one that will not only occupy our moral energies, but also shape the ways in which narratives of violence in the 1980s are written. These were dark times in a country weighed down by states of emergency and militarised control. The exaggerated quality of Madikizela-Mandela’s life had to bear, too, the nightmares of our nation’s struggles to free itself. </p>
<p>The ANC could barely contain the nature of leadership that Winnie represented. Like many women in the movement, she was marginalised from its powerful decision making structures. Unlike male leaders, her personal life was constantly under the spotlight (no doubt aided by a zealous security machinery that kept her under constant surveillance), and she was judged harshly and unfairly for her private choices. Although she was a masterful player of the familial categories of wife and mother, she felt reduced by them too.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212929/original/file-20180403-189827-13ajmv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212929/original/file-20180403-189827-13ajmv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212929/original/file-20180403-189827-13ajmv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212929/original/file-20180403-189827-13ajmv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212929/original/file-20180403-189827-13ajmv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212929/original/file-20180403-189827-13ajmv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212929/original/file-20180403-189827-13ajmv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Winnie with Nelson Mandela after his release from prison in 1990.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Stringer</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Commentators like to use words such as maverick and wayward to describe her, but these tendencies developed because the regular structures of the ANC could not easily accommodate a powerful woman with a radical voice. Stepping outside the agreed parameters of the official party line, as she frequently did, was a form of asserting her independence, a form of refusal of the terms of political cadreship that were available to women in the ANC and in society more generally. It also allowed her to build alliances with the new voices emerging after 1994, from standing with the <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2002/16.html">Treatment Action Campaign</a> against Thabo Mbeki’s policies on HIV/AIDS, to supporting the formation of the Economic Freedom Fighters. It accounts for the tremendous affection for her among young activists who are equally wary of the sedimented power structures in politics.</p>
<p>The endless stream of photographs that picture her in romantic embrace with Nelson Mandela, even now in her death, and despite their divorce, miss this fundamental point: the marriage was only a small part of her life, not its definitive point. To present her simply as wife, mostly as mother, is to erase the many struggles she waged to be defined in her own terms.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94300/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shireen Hassim receives funding from the AW Mellon Foundation for a project entitled Governing Intimacies. </span></em></p>
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s political power stemmed from the visceral connection that she was able to make between the lives of the oppressed black people, and her own.
Shireen Hassim, Professor of Political Studies, WiSER, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/94314
2018-04-03T13:03:03Z
2018-04-03T13:03:03Z
South Africa’s ‘mother of the nation’ who was never first lady
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212946/original/file-20180403-189813-1mypncg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Winnie Madikizela-Mandela carved her own political identity in the struggle for freedom.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Stringer</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/winnie-madikizela-mandela">Winnie Madikizela-Mandela</a> – doyen of South Africa’s liberation struggle and the matriarch who was dubbed ‘the mother of the nation’ – took the apartheid system head-on, at the huge personal cost. Her life typified the courage to stand up against injustice. It inspired hope during moments of adversity and hardship. She personified tenacity to a just cause in the face of a political system that demeaned those she represented as sub-humans. </p>
<p>Hers was a struggle for humanity, often times waged in an inhuman way. Her legacy is that of antinomies. Profound because it was complex. It outstripped the simple narratives of villainy and righteousness. She was, after all, only human and therefore fallible. Her demeanour was that of a feisty <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/winnie-madikizela-mandela">Iron Lady</a> with Thatcherite streaks, but immersed in the tradition of revolutionary pursuit. </p>
<p>She did not bask in the glory of her revered husband <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/nelson-rolihlahla-mandela">Nelson Mandela</a>. She was never simply his wife. Instead she carved out her own political identity in the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/organisations/african-national-congress-anc">African National Congress</a>. The outcome was that she was loved and loathed. </p>
<p>She kept the flame of the struggle inside the country burning while many in the leadership of the liberation movements were consigned to Robben Island or exiled. But her <a href="http://www.storiadelledonne.it/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Hassim2014.pdf">endorsement of violence</a> to fight the brutality of the apartheid system did not go down well with the ANC leadership. </p>
<p>The apartheid state failed in its many attempts to break her. This included arrests, detentions, solitary confinements and <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/winnie-mandela-banished-brandfort">banishment</a> to a small town in the Free State called Brandfort.</p>
<h2>Indiscretions and accountability</h2>
<p>Etched in everyone’s memory is the historic picture of her – clenched-fist salute symbolising black power – walking alongside her husband Nelson Mandela who had just been released from prison after 27 years. It was a power couple whose travails personified a country at the brink of redemption, the moment marking the beginning of a new dawn. </p>
<p>As Mandela’s wife many thought that she would become South Africa’s First Lady – a title that had been appropriated to her for a long time in the mass democratic movement. Unfortunately, fate had its own way. Madikizela-Mandela was the mother of the nation who never became the first lady.</p>
<p>And residues of her indiscretions began to demand accountability. She had run-ins with the law. An indelible blemish in her biography is certainly her implication in the death of the 14-year-old child activist <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/stompie-seipeis-murderer-goes-jail">Stompie Seipei</a>, who was a member of the Mandela Football Club, which she had established to disguise her political mobilisation of young people in the township. <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/media%5C1997%5C9711/s971128r.htm">Jerry Richardson</a>, the coach of the club who was later exposed as having spied for the apartheid government, apportioned some blame on her. Richardson was sentenced to life imprisonment for the abduction and murder of Seipei. He <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Stompies-killer-dies-in-prison-20090407">died in prison</a>.</p>
<p>Madikizela-Mandela denied culpability in Seipei’s death and accused Richardson of lying. She was nevertheless convicted of abduction and assault. A six year prison sentence was <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/winnie-nomzamo-madikizela-mandela-sentenced-six-years">commuted to a fine</a> on appeal. </p>
<p>She later shouldered some responsibility for Seipei’s death in a grudging admission to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/media%5C1997%5C9712/s971204v.htm">things went horribly wrong</a>. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This followed a desperate attempt by the TRC’s chairperson Desmond Tutu to extract a confession – and remorse – from her. She apologised to the Seipei family, but maintained her innocence. </p>
<p>The TRC’s finding against her was that she was <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=h2qhAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA154&lpg=PA154&dq=WINNIE+WAS+politically+and+morally+accountable+for+the+gross+violations+of+human+rights+committee+by+members+of+the+Club.&source=bl&ots=IZQAQ0D79K&sig=r3CCwJ5RgfohIediBMbJFHPe14I&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi-pMjXjZ7aAhXKCsAKHQKcCy0Q6AEISDAG#v=onepage&q&f=false">“politically and morally accountable</a> for the gross violations of human rights committed” by members of the Club. </p>
<p>The TRC was established to <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/">promote unity and reconciliation</a>, bore witness to, recorded, and in some instances granted amnesty to the perpetrators of human rights violations either in defence of, or fighting against, apartheid. It offered rehabilitation and reparations to the victims of violence.</p>
<p>Some people were uneasy about the TRC process as it related to Madikizela-Mandela. Did the ANC abandon her? The ANC took <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/media%5C1997%5C9712/s971202i.htm">collective responsibility</a> for the human rights violations during the struggle against apartheid. But Madikizela-Mandela was left to take personal responsibility for the atrocities related to the activities of the Mandela United Football Club. </p>
<p>Her troubles didn’t end there. She was charged with fraud and theft in relation to a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/apr/24/southafrica">bank loan</a>. She was convicted and given a five-year jail sentence. But she appealed and the sentence was set aside.</p>
<p>Her biographer Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrop, in the book Winnie Mandela: a Life, <a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/winnie-mandela-life/9781868729265">writes</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In the worldwind of events following Mandela’s release from prison and the start of negotiations designed to ensure a peaceful transition rather than a bloodbath in South Africa…no one bothered to find out what Winnie needed and wanted, how her life had changed or what her aspirations might be…From the moment she was implicated in the serious crimes involving the football club, it was though her entire past had been erased from the public mind. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Unanswered questions</h2>
<p>There are many questions that relate to the role of this colossal in the liberation struggle – and post-apartheid South Africa – that historians should critically examine. They go beyond simple biographical narratives. </p>
<p>For example, how would events have unfolded if she hadn’t taken the action she did? What lay behind her penchant for military inspired and violent approaches to the liberation struggle? Was it because she found the ANC too moderate relative to the violence the apartheid system was unleashing? Or was it because of the torture she endured at the hands of the apartheid regime?</p>
<p>And why did she continue to show preference for radical approaches to policy choices even in the post-apartheid South Africa, when her party was in charge? </p>
<p>In expressing her displeasure at what happened to her after Mandela’s release, it was as though, having fought bitterly against apartheid, she was fighting a struggle within a struggle.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94314/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mashupye Herbert Maserumule received funding from the National Research Foundation (NRF). He is the Chief Editor of the Journal of Public Administration and a member of the South African Association of Public Administration and Management(SAAPAM)</span></em></p>
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s struggle was for humanity, oftentimes waged in an inhuman way.
Mashupye Herbert Maserumule, Professor of Public Affairs, Tshwane University of Technology
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/85193
2017-10-05T14:51:41Z
2017-10-05T14:51:41Z
Tutu’s activism for justice shows how theology can be made real
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188779/original/file-20171004-32388-1icaddd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"> Archbishop Desmond Tutu 's deep spirituality drove him to fight for freedom and justice.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Nic Bothma</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/archbishop-emeritus-mpilo-desmond-tutu">Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu</a> is internationally acclaimed for his life and work. </p>
<p>He has become best known for his work as General Secretary of the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/statement-by-the-general-secretary-of-south-african-council-of-churches%2C-desmond-tutu">South African Council of Churches</a>, a base from which he led the churches in the struggle against apartheid for which he was awarded the <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1984/tutu-facts.html">Nobel Peace Prize</a> in 1984, and his role as <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/archbishop-tutu-retires-0">Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town</a> in which he continued that public role as a leading symbol of black liberation and the bane of white South Africa. </p>
<p>He is also known for his role as the chairperson of the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/tutu-and-his-role-truth-reconciliation-commission">Truth and Reconciliation Commission</a> in which he endeavoured to help heal the nation as its father confessor; and lastly in a regularly deferred retirement, as a respected <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/International/TenWays/story?id=3389067">global elder</a> in seeking to resolve both local and international conflicts.</p>
<p>Where does one even begin to start writing in appreciation of such a person and such a life? Fortunately, my task has been defined for me. I have been asked to write about his theology, an unusual request, but important nonetheless, given the fact that everything Tutu has said and done has been shaped, not by political insight and ambition, or by ecclesiastical interests, but by his faith in God, that is, by his theology.</p>
<h2>Spiritual leader</h2>
<p>Tutu is first and foremost, a spiritual leader, a man of deep prayer. But his deep spirituality is not and has never been the piety of a religious ghetto; exactly the opposite. </p>
<p>It was this that motivated his participation in seeking justice for the downtrodden and supporting the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/1960-1994-armed-struggle-and-popular-resistance">liberation struggle</a>. It was this that gave him the courage to confront political bullies, stand up to abuse even from within his own church, and lead protest marches in the face of overwhelming displays of state power.</p>
<p>Functionaries of the apartheid state as well as those of our current government who abuse their power, look decidedly tawdry alongside the Arch. They are no match for his moral authority, his spiritual depth, or his theological wisdom. Nor can they compete with his humility, humour or humanity.</p>
<p>Unless we begin at this point in acknowledging Tutu’s spirituality we will completely misunderstand who he is and the contribution he makes to the life of the world. Critics who label him a political priest, totally misunderstand him. Tutu is politically astute, but he has had no personal political ambitions, nor was or is he a member of any political party.</p>
<h2>Reconciliatory ministry</h2>
<p>His social engagement began as he daily celebrated the <a href="https://www.ewtn.com/faith/teachings/eucha1a.htm">Eucharist</a>, listening in the silence to discern what needed to be said and done in the public arena. He had learnt this from his earliest teachers, the <a href="https://books.google.com.ng/books?id=S6UYpCoGUkgC&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=Fathers+of+the+Community+of+the+Resurrection+in+Rosettenville&source=bl&ots=YrN70Xk0-4&sig=AtpDlGmPQfTRNDeyckq5YdTZoek&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiE2Mqe79bWAhUJsY8KHY7MCLIQ6AEILzAB#v=onepage&q=Fathers%20of%20the%20Community%20of%20the%20Resurrection%20in%20Rosettenville&f=false">Fathers of the Community of the Resurrection</a> in Rosettenville and <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/place/sophiatown">Sophiatown</a>, among them <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/father-trevor-huddleston">Trevor Huddleston</a>, whose scathing critique of apartheid, <a href="https://archive.org/details/naughtforyourcom001856mbp"><em>Naught for your Comfort</em>,</a> remains a classic.</p>
<p>It goes without saying that Tutu was well versed in the theological doctrines of Christian faith. In particular he had a profound understanding of the incarnational character of Christianity, the faith conviction that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>God was in Christ reconciling the world.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Therefore, he stressed the incarnational and reconciling ministry of the church in the life of the world. He discerned the image of God imprinted on the face of all human beings, and believed that despite their sins, none was beyond redemption. Thus forgiveness and the inclusive embrace of the other are fundamental to human and social well-being.</p>
<p>His favourite theological theme was the <a href="http://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/transfiguration/">Transfiguration</a>, a symbol of hope and encouragement in times of darkest despair when the cross looms large and suffering becomes inevitable though potentially redemptive. Tutu drank deeply from the wells of the Hebrew prophets whose words inspired his own as he challenged evil, spoke truth to power and words of hope to the powerless. All the while, he was being drawn deeper into the mystery of God as he journeyed into the suffering of people and trying to find meaning in the darkest of times. On one occasion, in speaking about the untimely death of a young Christian leader, he cried out</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://kairossouthernafrica.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/2012-steve-de-gruchy-memorial-lecture-archbishop-emeritus-desmond-tutu/">God is God’s worst enemy!</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>That is when theology becomes real – when the very word God becomes difficult to utter, when God is apparently absent. It is at the cross that faith is born. That is the faith of Desmond Tutu; the faith that enabled him to fight injustice and provide leadership in the struggle against oppression. That is Tutu’s theology, profoundly simple, yet simply profound.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85193/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John de Gruchy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Archbishop Desmond Tutu is first and foremost, a spiritual leader, a man of deep prayer. This motivated his participation in supporting South Africa’s liberation struggle.
John de Gruchy, Emeritus Professor of Christian Studies, University of Cape Town
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/79124
2017-06-08T16:31:15Z
2017-06-08T16:31:15Z
It’s cold outside Zuma’s ANC. But there’s little warmth left inside
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172920/original/file-20170608-32301-170ol4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A protest in support of Raymond Suttner released from detention in 1988 by apartheid authorities.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Robert Botha/Times Media Group</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In the liberation struggle against apartheid a small number of white people joined the battle to overthrow the South African regime. One of them, academic Raymond Suttner, was first arrested in 1975 and tortured with electric shocks because he refused to supply information to the police. He then served eight years in prison because of his underground activities for the African National Congress and South African Communist Party.</em></p>
<p><em>After his release in 1983 he was forced - after two years - to go underground to evade arrest, but was re-detained in 1986 under repeatedly renewed states of emergency for 27 months – 18 of these in solitary confinement.</em></p>
<p><em>First published in 2001, Suttner’s prison memoir “Inside Apartheid’s Prison”, has been made available again, now with a completely new introduction. The Conversation Africa’s Charles Leonard spoke to Suttner.</em></p>
<p><strong>Why did you write the book?</strong></p>
<p>I was hesitant to write it because there is a culture of modesty that is inculcated in cadres. I used to think it was “not done” to write about myself. I also thought that my experience was a “parking ticket” compared with the sentences of Nelson Mandela and others. But I came to feel that I have a story to tell. </p>
<p>Nevertheless I hope that resources will be found so that more stories are told, not only of prison but the many unknown people who pursued resistance in different ways in a range of relatively unknown places.</p>
<p><strong>You were imprisoned and on house arrest for over 11 years. It was based on choices you made. Would you make the same choices today?</strong></p>
<p>Yes. I did what I believed was right at the time and even if things are not turning out so well at the moment that does not invalidate those choices. I saw the liberation struggle as having a sacred quality and considered it an honour to be part of it. </p>
<p>I was very influenced by the great Afrikaner Communist <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/abram-fischer">Bram Fischer</a>. He had nothing to gain personally and could have been a judge, the president of the country or anything else. Instead he chose a life of danger and later life imprisonment. I was inspired by that example, amongst others, to do what I could. </p>
<p>When one embarks on revolutionary activities there are no guarantees of success. I was not sure that I would come out alive. I did what I believed was right and would make the same choices again.</p>
<p><strong>So those choices were worth it?</strong></p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172918/original/file-20170608-32312-rckzh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172918/original/file-20170608-32312-rckzh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172918/original/file-20170608-32312-rckzh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172918/original/file-20170608-32312-rckzh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172918/original/file-20170608-32312-rckzh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172918/original/file-20170608-32312-rckzh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172918/original/file-20170608-32312-rckzh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Definitely. This was not a business venture where one could answer such a question through balancing profits and losses. For me joining the struggle, as a white, gave me the opportunity to start my life afresh by joining my fortunes with those who were oppressed. It gave me the chance to link myself with the majority of South Africans. </p>
<p>That was a more authentic way of living my life than whatever successes I may have achieved, had I simply focused on professional success. Most importantly I see this choice – to join the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/liberation-struggle-south-africa">liberation struggle</a> – as giving me the opportunity to humanise myself as a white South African in apartheid South Africa.</p>
<p><strong>Do you still feel the damage after all these years in prison?</strong></p>
<p>Yes. I have post-traumatic stress. I am not sure that it will ever be eliminated or that I always recognise its appearance. Many of us live with scars from that period.</p>
<p>I have not always acknowledged or understood that I have been damaged but it is directly related to my having <a href="http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/fibromyalgia/home/ovc-20317786">fibromyalgia</a> (a disorder characterised by widespread musculoskeletal pain accompanied by fatigue, sleep, memory and mood issues), according to the specialist who diagnosed it. She cautioned me about returning to my prison experiences, in this book, fearing the possibility of it setting off physically painful symptoms. That didn’t happen as far as I am aware and returning to the scene of trauma may be part of healing, according to some. </p>
<p><strong>Why did you break with the ANC over 10 years ago?</strong></p>
<p>I had not been happy with many aspects of <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/thabo-mvuyelwa-mbeki">Thabo Mbeki</a>’s presidency but that did not mean I should align myself with his successor <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/jacob-gedleyihlekisa-zuma">Jacob Zuma</a>. Zuma’s candidacy was promoted not only by ANC people but especially the South African Communist Party (SACP) and trade union federation <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/congress-south-african-trade-unions-cosatu">Cosatu</a>’s leaderships, presenting him as having qualities that were not valid. In particular the claim that Zuma was a man of the people with sympathy for the poor and downtrodden was untrue.</p>
<p>It was already known that he was <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/president-thabo-mbeki-sacks-deputy-president-jacob-zuma">linked</a> with corrupt activities before he was elected as ANC president in 2007. But what was decisive for me was Zuma’s 2006 <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2016-08-10-the-khanga-womanhood-and-how-zumas-2006-rape-trial-changed-its-meaning">rape trial</a>. There was something very cruel in the way the complainant, known as <a href="http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2016/10/10/who-was-khwezi-heres-what-we-learnt-during-the-zuma-rape-trial">“Khwezi”</a>, was treated, in the mode of defence that Zuma chose. I found that <a href="http://www.capetalk.co.za/articles/191680/khwezi-was-let-down-by-the-justice-system-of-this-country-nomboniso-gasa">unacceptable</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Is it not lonely outside the ANC?</strong></p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172921/original/file-20170608-32343-1yuqu9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172921/original/file-20170608-32343-1yuqu9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172921/original/file-20170608-32343-1yuqu9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172921/original/file-20170608-32343-1yuqu9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172921/original/file-20170608-32343-1yuqu9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172921/original/file-20170608-32343-1yuqu9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172921/original/file-20170608-32343-1yuqu9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Raymond Suttner in 2001, when ‘Inside Apartheid’s Prison’ was first published.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Raymond Preston/Times Media Group</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I miss the comradeship that I understood to bind me to people with whom I had shared dangers, joys and sorrows. When you are together in difficult times it creates a special bond. I did not conceive of that being broken.</p>
<p>But when you break away in a <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/rdm/news/2017-04-11-uct-slams-corruption-state-capture-under-zuma/">time of decadence</a>, what is it that one misses? I cannot resume relationships on the same basis as those which I previously counted as comradeship. Our paths diverged. I went out into the cold and some with whom I used to be very close chose to link themselves with a <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-need-to-despair-even-as-the-dream-of-south-africa-feels-like-a-nightmare-76129">project</a> that has meant corruption, violence and destroying everything that was once valued in the liberation tradition. </p>
<p>These former comrades have all been accomplices in <a href="https://mg.co.za/report/zumaville-a-special-report">Nkandla</a> (Zuma’s private rural home which was upgraded at a cost to the country of R246-million to taxpayers), the <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-grant-scandal-exposes-myths-about-how-the-state-should-run-things-74325">social grants scandal</a> and many other <a href="http://www.groundup.org.za/article/who-are-guptas/">features of this period</a> which have seen some individuals benefit unlawfully and at the expense of the poor. I do not say that every person I know has been improperly enriched. But all those who have been in the ANC/SACP/Cosatu leadership have endorsed, indeed even provided elaborate defences of some of the worst features of the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-17450447">Zuma period</a>. </p>
<p>In the new introduction to the book I use the word “betrayal” and I choose it to refer to these people, many of whom were once brave, who turned their backs on those from whom they came or whose cause they once adopted as their own.</p>
<p>Yes, it’s lonely. But that loneliness cannot be remedied by resuming bonds
with people who have taken fundamentally different paths. I now build relationships with others from whom I am learning and growing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79124/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raymond Suttner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In the new introduction to his prison memoir South African anti-apartheid stalwart Raymond Suttner uses the word ‘betrayal’ to explain his break from the ANC.
Raymond Suttner, Emeritus Professor, University of South Africa and part-time professor Rhodes University, Rhodes University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.