Objecting to apartheid: the history of the end conscription campaign
- Authors: Jones, David
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: End Conscription Campaign (South Africa) , Apartheid -- South Africa , Government, Resistance to South Africa , Conscientious objection South Africa , South Africa -- Social conditions , South Africa -- Politics and government
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA (History)
- Identifier: vital:11538 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/d1005998 , End Conscription Campaign (South Africa) , Apartheid -- South Africa , Government, Resistance to South Africa , Conscientious objection South Africa , South Africa -- Social conditions , South Africa -- Politics and government
- Description: It is important that the story of organisations like the End Conscription Campaign be recorded. The narrative of the struggle against apartheid has become a site of contestation. As the downfall of apartheid is still a relatively recent event, the history is still in the process of formation. There is much contestation over the relative contributions of different groups within the struggle. This is an important debate as it informs and shapes the politics of the present. A new official narrative is emerging which accentuates the role of particular groupings, portraying them as the heroes and the leaders of the struggle. A new elite have laid exclusive claim to the heritage of the struggle and are using this narrative to justify their hold on power through the creation of highly centralised political structures in which positions of power are reserved for loyal cadres and independent thinking and questioning are seen as a threat. A complementary tradition of grassroots democracy, of open debate and transparency, of “people’s power”, of accountability of leadership to the people fostered in the struggle is being lost. It is important to contest this narrative. We need to remember that the downfall of apartheid was brought about by a myriad combination of factors and forces. Current academic interpretations emphasize that no one group or organisation, no matter how significant its contribution, was solely responsible. There was no military victory or other decisive event which brought the collapse of the system, rather a sapping of will to pay the ever increasing cost to maintain it. The struggle against apartheid involved a groundswell, popular uprising in which the initiative came not from centralised political structures, orchestrating a grand revolt, but from ordinary South Africans who were reacting to the oppressive nature of a brutally discriminatory system which sought to control every aspect of their lives.4 Leaders and structures emerged organically as communities organised themselves around issues that affected them. Organisations that emerged were highly democratic and accountable to their members. There was no grand plan or centralised control of the process. As Walter Benjamin warned in a different context, but applicable here: “All rulers are the heirs of those who have conquered before them.” He feared that what he referred to as a historicist view constructed a version of history as a triumphal parade of progress. “Whoever has emerged victorious” he reminds us “participates to this day in the triumphal procession in which the present rulers step over those who are lying prostrate. According to traditional practice the spoils are carried along in the procession.” 5 He was warning of just such a tendency, which has been repeated so often in the past, for the victors to construct a version of history which ends up justifying a new tyranny. To counter this tendency it is important that other histories of the struggle are told – that the stories of other groups, which are marginalised by the new hegemonic discourse, are recorded.This aim of this dissertation is thus two-fold. Firstly it aims to investigate “the story” of the End Conscription Campaign, which has largely been seen as a white anti-apartheid liberal organisation. The objective is to provide a detailed historical account and periodisation of the organisation to fill in the gaps and challenge the distortions of a new emerging “official” discourse.Secondly within this framework, and by using the activities and strategies of the organisation as evidence for its suppositions, the question of the role played by the ECC in the struggle.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Jones, David
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: End Conscription Campaign (South Africa) , Apartheid -- South Africa , Government, Resistance to South Africa , Conscientious objection South Africa , South Africa -- Social conditions , South Africa -- Politics and government
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA (History)
- Identifier: vital:11538 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/d1005998 , End Conscription Campaign (South Africa) , Apartheid -- South Africa , Government, Resistance to South Africa , Conscientious objection South Africa , South Africa -- Social conditions , South Africa -- Politics and government
- Description: It is important that the story of organisations like the End Conscription Campaign be recorded. The narrative of the struggle against apartheid has become a site of contestation. As the downfall of apartheid is still a relatively recent event, the history is still in the process of formation. There is much contestation over the relative contributions of different groups within the struggle. This is an important debate as it informs and shapes the politics of the present. A new official narrative is emerging which accentuates the role of particular groupings, portraying them as the heroes and the leaders of the struggle. A new elite have laid exclusive claim to the heritage of the struggle and are using this narrative to justify their hold on power through the creation of highly centralised political structures in which positions of power are reserved for loyal cadres and independent thinking and questioning are seen as a threat. A complementary tradition of grassroots democracy, of open debate and transparency, of “people’s power”, of accountability of leadership to the people fostered in the struggle is being lost. It is important to contest this narrative. We need to remember that the downfall of apartheid was brought about by a myriad combination of factors and forces. Current academic interpretations emphasize that no one group or organisation, no matter how significant its contribution, was solely responsible. There was no military victory or other decisive event which brought the collapse of the system, rather a sapping of will to pay the ever increasing cost to maintain it. The struggle against apartheid involved a groundswell, popular uprising in which the initiative came not from centralised political structures, orchestrating a grand revolt, but from ordinary South Africans who were reacting to the oppressive nature of a brutally discriminatory system which sought to control every aspect of their lives.4 Leaders and structures emerged organically as communities organised themselves around issues that affected them. Organisations that emerged were highly democratic and accountable to their members. There was no grand plan or centralised control of the process. As Walter Benjamin warned in a different context, but applicable here: “All rulers are the heirs of those who have conquered before them.” He feared that what he referred to as a historicist view constructed a version of history as a triumphal parade of progress. “Whoever has emerged victorious” he reminds us “participates to this day in the triumphal procession in which the present rulers step over those who are lying prostrate. According to traditional practice the spoils are carried along in the procession.” 5 He was warning of just such a tendency, which has been repeated so often in the past, for the victors to construct a version of history which ends up justifying a new tyranny. To counter this tendency it is important that other histories of the struggle are told – that the stories of other groups, which are marginalised by the new hegemonic discourse, are recorded.This aim of this dissertation is thus two-fold. Firstly it aims to investigate “the story” of the End Conscription Campaign, which has largely been seen as a white anti-apartheid liberal organisation. The objective is to provide a detailed historical account and periodisation of the organisation to fill in the gaps and challenge the distortions of a new emerging “official” discourse.Secondly within this framework, and by using the activities and strategies of the organisation as evidence for its suppositions, the question of the role played by the ECC in the struggle.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
The impact of missionary activities and the establishment of Victoria East, 1824-1860
- Maxengana, Nomalungisa Sylvia
- Authors: Maxengana, Nomalungisa Sylvia
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Missionaries -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- History , Christianity and culture -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Christianity and other religions -- African -- Eastern Cape -- History , Xhosa (African people) -- Religious life , Eastern Cape -- Politics and Government -- Alice (South Africa)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA (History)
- Identifier: vital:11539 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/d1006292 , Missionaries -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- History , Christianity and culture -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Christianity and other religions -- African -- Eastern Cape -- History , Xhosa (African people) -- Religious life , Eastern Cape -- Politics and Government -- Alice (South Africa)
- Description: This thesis covers a period of drastic change in that part of Xhosaland later known as Victoria East. Chapters one and two deal with the clash between the Glasgow missionaries at Lovedale and the amaXhosa who were expected to simply discard their way of life in favour of the new dispensation. Chapter three explains the arrival in the Eastern Cape of the amaMfengu, formerly called abaMbo, and their role in the divisive policies of the colonial government. Chapter four recounts the brief interlude (1836-1846) during which the colonial government tried but ultimately rejected a more equitable model of cross-border relations known as the Treaty System. The final chapter deals with the introduction of direct rule over the newly-created district of Victoria East, and with the policies of Henry Calderwood, its first magistrate, which were artfully constructed to perpetuate ‘Divide and Rule’ so as to maintain a comfortable life for the white settlers in the border area.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
- Authors: Maxengana, Nomalungisa Sylvia
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Missionaries -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- History , Christianity and culture -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Christianity and other religions -- African -- Eastern Cape -- History , Xhosa (African people) -- Religious life , Eastern Cape -- Politics and Government -- Alice (South Africa)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA (History)
- Identifier: vital:11539 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/d1006292 , Missionaries -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- History , Christianity and culture -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Christianity and other religions -- African -- Eastern Cape -- History , Xhosa (African people) -- Religious life , Eastern Cape -- Politics and Government -- Alice (South Africa)
- Description: This thesis covers a period of drastic change in that part of Xhosaland later known as Victoria East. Chapters one and two deal with the clash between the Glasgow missionaries at Lovedale and the amaXhosa who were expected to simply discard their way of life in favour of the new dispensation. Chapter three explains the arrival in the Eastern Cape of the amaMfengu, formerly called abaMbo, and their role in the divisive policies of the colonial government. Chapter four recounts the brief interlude (1836-1846) during which the colonial government tried but ultimately rejected a more equitable model of cross-border relations known as the Treaty System. The final chapter deals with the introduction of direct rule over the newly-created district of Victoria East, and with the policies of Henry Calderwood, its first magistrate, which were artfully constructed to perpetuate ‘Divide and Rule’ so as to maintain a comfortable life for the white settlers in the border area.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
Cultural villages inherited tradition and "African culture": a case study of Mgwali Cultural Village in the Eastern Cape
- Authors: Bovana, Solomzi Victor
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: Tourism -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Heritage tourism -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Culture and tourism -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA (History)
- Identifier: vital:11537 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/552 , Tourism -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Heritage tourism -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Culture and tourism -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Description: A growing number of studies concerning cultural villages have in most instances tended to focus on the cultural village as almost legitimately self-explanatory and have not been particularly concerned with either how a particular history is produced in and through these villages, or with the ways that particular discourses and practices associated with heritage, tourism, community and development intersect in the production of these meanings. As such Mgwali Cultural Village seemed to promise something different in the form of cultural villages. The thesis argues that Mgwali Cultural Village is unique in the history of cultural villages in that it moves away from presenting a cultural village in Africa as tribal and primitive. It does this by opening up spaces for other aspects such as Christianity and resistance politics, story of Tiyo Soga rather than focusing and confining itself only to aspects cultural portraying Africans and traditional. It is imperative that cultural villages ought to be understood within a broader framework and context where its definition and presentation is not trapped into an anthropological paradigm thinking of exploring and discovering something new by tourists which they are not familiar with. However, the thesis also argues that much as Mgwali Cultural Village promised something new from the known through depiction of other aspects, those histories seem to be absent or marginal at the Cultural Village. The only aspects that are fore grounded are traditions and culture thus freezing Mgwali as a village and its people in time as if they have not evolved and its cultures are static and not dynamic. The thesis therefore explores all those contradictions, silences, or absence thereof of other stories and histories.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
- Authors: Bovana, Solomzi Victor
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: Tourism -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Heritage tourism -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Culture and tourism -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA (History)
- Identifier: vital:11537 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/552 , Tourism -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Heritage tourism -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Culture and tourism -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Description: A growing number of studies concerning cultural villages have in most instances tended to focus on the cultural village as almost legitimately self-explanatory and have not been particularly concerned with either how a particular history is produced in and through these villages, or with the ways that particular discourses and practices associated with heritage, tourism, community and development intersect in the production of these meanings. As such Mgwali Cultural Village seemed to promise something different in the form of cultural villages. The thesis argues that Mgwali Cultural Village is unique in the history of cultural villages in that it moves away from presenting a cultural village in Africa as tribal and primitive. It does this by opening up spaces for other aspects such as Christianity and resistance politics, story of Tiyo Soga rather than focusing and confining itself only to aspects cultural portraying Africans and traditional. It is imperative that cultural villages ought to be understood within a broader framework and context where its definition and presentation is not trapped into an anthropological paradigm thinking of exploring and discovering something new by tourists which they are not familiar with. However, the thesis also argues that much as Mgwali Cultural Village promised something new from the known through depiction of other aspects, those histories seem to be absent or marginal at the Cultural Village. The only aspects that are fore grounded are traditions and culture thus freezing Mgwali as a village and its people in time as if they have not evolved and its cultures are static and not dynamic. The thesis therefore explores all those contradictions, silences, or absence thereof of other stories and histories.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
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