Matseliso R. Motsoane, C. Twala, Mokete L. Pherudi
Historically, the period 1976 to the early 1980s in Lesotho shows that at the students of the National University of Lesotho (NUL) played an important role in the struggle for liberation. This article acknowledges that scholarly work has been performed in addressing student activism during the period under discussion, with specific focus on those at NUL. While conceding that in most cases student activism was not well-coordinated, the article indicates that with the formation of Committee for Action and Solidarity for Southern African Students (CASSAS) at NUL, a partially unified approach was adopted. This partial unity resulted from the fact that students belonged to ideologically different formations which at some point became antagonistic to one another. Despite the relentless efforts by NUL management, state agencies and to a lesser extent the South African apartheid regime to stifle such activism, the influence of CASSAS was noteworthy. Through CASSAS, students became critics of the university’s management, as well as the ruling Basutoland National Party (BNP) under the leadership of Chief Leabua Jonathan. As in many African countries, for example in Uganda (Makerere) and Zimbabwe (University of Zimbabwe), universities were designed as either state-controlled or state-directed. In this article, we use the publication called The Vanguard to highlight students’ activism under CASSAS at NUL.Contribution: This article delves into the impactful role of National University of Lesotho students in the 1976-1980s liberation struggle. Focusing on CASSAS, it unveils a partially unified approach amid ideological differences. Despite suppression, CASSAS emerged as a significant influence through The Vanguard, critiquing both university management and political leadership.
{"title":"The role of CASSAS in the liberation struggle of the southern African region, 1976 to the early 1980s","authors":"Matseliso R. Motsoane, C. Twala, Mokete L. Pherudi","doi":"10.4102/nc.v90i0.241","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4102/nc.v90i0.241","url":null,"abstract":"Historically, the period 1976 to the early 1980s in Lesotho shows that at the students of the National University of Lesotho (NUL) played an important role in the struggle for liberation. This article acknowledges that scholarly work has been performed in addressing student activism during the period under discussion, with specific focus on those at NUL. While conceding that in most cases student activism was not well-coordinated, the article indicates that with the formation of Committee for Action and Solidarity for Southern African Students (CASSAS) at NUL, a partially unified approach was adopted. This partial unity resulted from the fact that students belonged to ideologically different formations which at some point became antagonistic to one another. Despite the relentless efforts by NUL management, state agencies and to a lesser extent the South African apartheid regime to stifle such activism, the influence of CASSAS was noteworthy. Through CASSAS, students became critics of the university’s management, as well as the ruling Basutoland National Party (BNP) under the leadership of Chief Leabua Jonathan. As in many African countries, for example in Uganda (Makerere) and Zimbabwe (University of Zimbabwe), universities were designed as either state-controlled or state-directed. In this article, we use the publication called The Vanguard to highlight students’ activism under CASSAS at NUL.Contribution: This article delves into the impactful role of National University of Lesotho students in the 1976-1980s liberation struggle. Focusing on CASSAS, it unveils a partially unified approach amid ideological differences. Despite suppression, CASSAS emerged as a significant influence through The Vanguard, critiquing both university management and political leadership.","PeriodicalId":52000,"journal":{"name":"New Contree","volume":"14 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138952045","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
There is a disturbing trend in the public arena by traditional leaders and their communities that their role and power in the development of their communities have been downplayed by the colonial, apartheid and democratic governments. This article examines a history of traditional leadership and African communities from pre-colonial times to the apartheid period. The traditional leaders’ status, place and role in the development of the communities are examined. It is argued that traditional leadership as a heritage was jealously guarded, strengthened and maintained by traditional leaders and rural communities in spite of successive governments’ assault on chiefs (iiNkosi) and kings (iiKumkani). In the past, traditional leaders worked collaboratively with their communities in exerting pressure on the previous governments to recognise traditional leadership as an institution worth maintaining and treasuring. They were the law-makers. Succession was a criterion for access to positions of power and had the power and the final say in matters of national importance.Contribution: The purpose of this article is to bring to the surface the fact that traditional leaders collaborated with colonial governing authorities and apartheid government not so much to serve as stooges but for personal interest. Hence, oral sources are also used to delve deep into the dynamics of traditional leadership.
{"title":"The waning fortunes of traditional leadership in South Africa: From pre-colonial to apartheid periods","authors":"Jongikhaya Mvenene","doi":"10.4102/nc.v90i0.248","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4102/nc.v90i0.248","url":null,"abstract":"There is a disturbing trend in the public arena by traditional leaders and their communities that their role and power in the development of their communities have been downplayed by the colonial, apartheid and democratic governments. This article examines a history of traditional leadership and African communities from pre-colonial times to the apartheid period. The traditional leaders’ status, place and role in the development of the communities are examined. It is argued that traditional leadership as a heritage was jealously guarded, strengthened and maintained by traditional leaders and rural communities in spite of successive governments’ assault on chiefs (iiNkosi) and kings (iiKumkani). In the past, traditional leaders worked collaboratively with their communities in exerting pressure on the previous governments to recognise traditional leadership as an institution worth maintaining and treasuring. They were the law-makers. Succession was a criterion for access to positions of power and had the power and the final say in matters of national importance.Contribution: The purpose of this article is to bring to the surface the fact that traditional leaders collaborated with colonial governing authorities and apartheid government not so much to serve as stooges but for personal interest. Hence, oral sources are also used to delve deep into the dynamics of traditional leadership.","PeriodicalId":52000,"journal":{"name":"New Contree","volume":"114 31","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138958444","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
24 May 2021 marked the centenary of the Bulhoek massacre in which government police and soldiers killed about 200 members of an Eastern Cape religious group called the Israelites who had been called by their prophet, Enoch Mgijima, to prepare for the end of the world. This essay examines Mgijima’s life, his apocalyptic visions, his call in 1919 to his followers to come to a holy village, Ntabelanga, near Queenstown, and their clashes and negotiations with government officials over their right to occupy land. It discusses the government decision to use armed force to expel the Israelites and what happened on 24 May 1921. Finally, it draws a comparison with a United States (US) massacre in May 1921 in which white vigilantes attacked a black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma.Contribution: This essay narrates how the Bulhoek massacre resulted from a century of white land conquest and dispossession and some Africans turning to apocalyptic visions to understand their plight. Since then, the South African state has used force on numerous occasions to suppress both black and white dissidents. This essay draws a transnational parallel with the commemoration of another white massacre of blacks that also took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma in the US in May 1921.
{"title":"The place of the Bulhoek massacre in South African history","authors":"Robert R. Edgar","doi":"10.4102/nc.v90i0.246","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4102/nc.v90i0.246","url":null,"abstract":"24 May 2021 marked the centenary of the Bulhoek massacre in which government police and soldiers killed about 200 members of an Eastern Cape religious group called the Israelites who had been called by their prophet, Enoch Mgijima, to prepare for the end of the world. This essay examines Mgijima’s life, his apocalyptic visions, his call in 1919 to his followers to come to a holy village, Ntabelanga, near Queenstown, and their clashes and negotiations with government officials over their right to occupy land. It discusses the government decision to use armed force to expel the Israelites and what happened on 24 May 1921. Finally, it draws a comparison with a United States (US) massacre in May 1921 in which white vigilantes attacked a black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma.Contribution: This essay narrates how the Bulhoek massacre resulted from a century of white land conquest and dispossession and some Africans turning to apocalyptic visions to understand their plight. Since then, the South African state has used force on numerous occasions to suppress both black and white dissidents. This essay draws a transnational parallel with the commemoration of another white massacre of blacks that also took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma in the US in May 1921.","PeriodicalId":52000,"journal":{"name":"New Contree","volume":"58 4","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136067552","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
New Contree serves as a scholarly voice and platform for instilling and disseminating specific and comparative local and regional history debate in Africa, and its value in broader (transnational contexts). New Contree’s intellectual repertoire compliments a rigorous theoretically reflexive social history in which inclusivity in reconstructing the past from ‘below’ (ordinary people’s voice, and acknowledging smaller community activities) and also from ‘above’ (be informed on related actions of for example central authority, government and national figures) matters. Change occurs through the interaction of major decisive events, and the rhythm of seemingly trivial, prosaic, and almost discreet courses of daily life.
{"title":"From the Editor-in-Chief’s Desk","authors":"Elize S. van Eeden","doi":"10.4102/nc.v90.250","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4102/nc.v90.250","url":null,"abstract":"New Contree serves as a scholarly voice and platform for instilling and disseminating specific and comparative local and regional history debate in Africa, and its value in broader (transnational contexts). New Contree’s intellectual repertoire compliments a rigorous theoretically reflexive social history in which inclusivity in reconstructing the past from ‘below’ (ordinary people’s voice, and acknowledging smaller community activities) and also from ‘above’ (be informed on related actions of for example central authority, government and national figures) matters. Change occurs through the interaction of major decisive events, and the rhythm of seemingly trivial, prosaic, and almost discreet courses of daily life.","PeriodicalId":52000,"journal":{"name":"New Contree","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136283898","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From the Editor-in-Chief’s Desk","authors":"Elize S. Van Eeden","doi":"10.4102/nc.v90i0.250","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4102/nc.v90i0.250","url":null,"abstract":"No abstract available.","PeriodicalId":52000,"journal":{"name":"New Contree","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136281030","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-30DOI: 10.54146/newcontree/2022/89/04
Robert Gordon
This paper concerns official “truth-seeking” about the Bondelzwarts Rebellion and its brutal suppression in 1922 by the South African administration in its newly-mandated territory of South West Africa. These events generated a number of official accounts, namely the administrator’s report, the Report of the Commission of Inquiry and subsequent debates in the South African parliament and the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations. These inquisitorial modes of truth-seeking are contrasted with the adversarial juridical mode in the treason trial resulting from the Bondelzwarts Rebellion, all of which share a common core, a particularistic, explanatory framework of describing individual motives and actions, thereby tracing a chain of events that led to collective violence. Like other commissions investigating “racial violence” in this era, they argued that while “inferior races” might be causally implicated, such violence reflected the failure of individual colonial officials to convince the “natives” of the benefits of colonialism. Remarkably, the judgement in the Treason Trial is ignored in these official debates at establishing the “truth”. It is striking how key government players denied the emerging consensus of what occurred. Tavris and Aronson’s work on essentialism and cognitive dissonance is applied to understand this situation, suggesting the importance of self-delusion for understanding the workings of colonialism.
{"title":"High Treason: The trial of the Bondelzwarts kaptein and the politics of settler self-delusion","authors":"Robert Gordon","doi":"10.54146/newcontree/2022/89/04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54146/newcontree/2022/89/04","url":null,"abstract":"This paper concerns official “truth-seeking” about the Bondelzwarts Rebellion and its brutal suppression in 1922 by the South African administration in its newly-mandated territory of South West Africa. These events generated a number of official accounts, namely the administrator’s report, the Report of the Commission of Inquiry and subsequent debates in the South African parliament and the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations. These inquisitorial modes of truth-seeking are contrasted with the adversarial juridical mode in the treason trial resulting from the Bondelzwarts Rebellion, all of which share a common core, a particularistic, explanatory framework of describing individual motives and actions, thereby tracing a chain of events that led to collective violence. Like other commissions investigating “racial violence” in this era, they argued that while “inferior races” might be causally implicated, such violence reflected the failure of individual colonial officials to convince the “natives” of the benefits of colonialism. Remarkably, the judgement in the Treason Trial is ignored in these official debates at establishing the “truth”. It is striking how key government players denied the emerging consensus of what occurred. Tavris and Aronson’s work on essentialism and cognitive dissonance is applied to understand this situation, suggesting the importance of self-delusion for understanding the workings of colonialism.","PeriodicalId":52000,"journal":{"name":"New Contree","volume":"s1-7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85979949","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-30DOI: 10.54146/newcontree/2022/89/01
Bongani Ngqulunga
The purpose of this article is to examine the role played by General JC Smuts, the prime minister of the Union of South Africa at the time, in the incident known as the Bulhoek Massacre which took place in May 1921. The discussion locates the Bulhoek incident in the broader context of Smuts’s attitude towards black people in South Africa. It explores his ideas and views on the subject of race, and scrutinises the policies that the government introduced under his premiership. It shows how he steered the country towards shoring up minority government and the political and economic exclusion, marginalisation and domination of African people in South Africa. In this it follows on the works of many other historians who have written in this vein and contend that the Bulhoek Massacre is the exemplar of Smuts’s views on the matter of race in South Africa.
{"title":"Jan Smuts and the Bulhoek Massacre: Race and state violence in the making of South Africa, 1919-1920s","authors":"Bongani Ngqulunga","doi":"10.54146/newcontree/2022/89/01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54146/newcontree/2022/89/01","url":null,"abstract":"The purpose of this article is to examine the role played by General JC Smuts, the prime minister of the Union of South Africa at the time, in the incident known as the Bulhoek Massacre which took place in May 1921. The discussion locates the Bulhoek incident in the broader context of Smuts’s attitude towards black people in South Africa. It explores his ideas and views on the subject of race, and scrutinises the policies that the government introduced under his premiership. It shows how he steered the country towards shoring up minority government and the political and economic exclusion, marginalisation and domination of African people in South Africa. In this it follows on the works of many other historians who have written in this vein and contend that the Bulhoek Massacre is the exemplar of Smuts’s views on the matter of race in South Africa.","PeriodicalId":52000,"journal":{"name":"New Contree","volume":"80 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76094529","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-30DOI: 10.54146/newcontree/2022/89/02
Justus Ondigi, G. Gona, K. Ombongi
Understanding piracy as a criminal business enterprise only presents a partial portrait of what is otherwise a complex phenomenon. Somali piracy could be better understood if it were framed as a multi-layered engagement whose various actors’ participation is driven by varied motivations beyond commentators, scholars and analysts’ explanations of the phenomenon as a struggle for control, domination and fierce competition among actors. This article seeks to illustrate the facets of Somali piracy through the lens of a political economy approach to provide a nuanced consideration of the various actors who participated in the piracy economy, what motivated them to participate in this economy and suggests the functions of the economies which emerge. Such an endeavour, unlike the past, will not glorify a few people or groups but will attempt to reveal the many other actors and their activities. Through the mining of secondary sources and newspaper articles, the authors demonstrate how the collapsed economy of Somalia after the Siad Barre regime opened many economic opportunities for a variety of people in Somalia and beyond. This provides not only a different but also a disaggregated explanation of piratical activities in the Horn of Africa and a foundation of targeted interventions to end the scourge.
{"title":"The political economy of Somali piracy: Unravelling the actors, their motivations and activities, 2005-2011","authors":"Justus Ondigi, G. Gona, K. Ombongi","doi":"10.54146/newcontree/2022/89/02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54146/newcontree/2022/89/02","url":null,"abstract":"Understanding piracy as a criminal business enterprise only presents a partial portrait of what is otherwise a complex phenomenon. Somali piracy could be better understood if it were framed as a multi-layered engagement whose various actors’ participation is driven by varied motivations beyond commentators, scholars and analysts’ explanations of the phenomenon as a struggle for control, domination and fierce competition among actors. This article seeks to illustrate the facets of Somali piracy through the lens of a political economy approach to provide a nuanced consideration of the various actors who participated in the piracy economy, what motivated them to participate in this economy and suggests the functions of the economies which emerge. Such an endeavour, unlike the past, will not glorify a few people or groups but will attempt to reveal the many other actors and their activities. Through the mining of secondary sources and newspaper articles, the authors demonstrate how the collapsed economy of Somalia after the Siad Barre regime opened many economic opportunities for a variety of people in Somalia and beyond. This provides not only a different but also a disaggregated explanation of piratical activities in the Horn of Africa and a foundation of targeted interventions to end the scourge.","PeriodicalId":52000,"journal":{"name":"New Contree","volume":"124 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86060914","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-30DOI: 10.54146/newcontree/2022/89/03
Vernon D. Johnson
Beginning in the 1940s, a literature on middleman minorities emerged to demystify the intermediary economic niche that Jews had occupied in medieval Europe. They were viewed as ethnic entrepreneurs occupying the economic status gap. In the 1960s, scholars began to apply middleman minority theory to colonial societies and to American society. More recently, Coloureds in South Africa have been identified as a middleman minority of another type: semi-privileged proletarians occupying an economic status gap in labour between whites and Africans. A political status gap between whites and Africans, both seeking alliances to achieve hegemony, is also occupied by Coloureds. Among South African Indians, one finds ethnic entrepreneurs: a small shopkeeping and trading class from South Asia. But there are also Indian semi-privileged proletarians who emerged from the indentured labour population in the early twentieth century. This article employs a historical institutional approach to analyse political tensions among Indians, and examines the cleavage between Indians and other races over political rights vis-a-vis the South African state. It also offers a typology contrasting ethnic entrepreneurs with semi-privileged proletarians in terms of the differing economic status gaps they occupy. Furthermore, it illustrates how Indians occupy a political status gap in a complex settler colonial society like South Africa.
{"title":"Indian South Africans as a middleman minority: Historical and contemporary perspectives","authors":"Vernon D. Johnson","doi":"10.54146/newcontree/2022/89/03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54146/newcontree/2022/89/03","url":null,"abstract":"Beginning in the 1940s, a literature on middleman minorities emerged to demystify the intermediary economic niche that Jews had occupied in medieval Europe. They were viewed as ethnic entrepreneurs occupying the economic status gap. In the 1960s, scholars began to apply middleman minority theory to colonial societies and to American society. More recently, Coloureds in South Africa have been identified as a middleman minority of another type: semi-privileged proletarians occupying an economic status gap in labour between whites and Africans. A political status gap between whites and Africans, both seeking alliances to achieve hegemony, is also occupied by Coloureds. Among South African Indians, one finds ethnic entrepreneurs: a small shopkeeping and trading class from South Asia. But there are also Indian semi-privileged proletarians who emerged from the indentured labour population in the early twentieth century. This article employs a historical institutional approach to analyse political tensions among Indians, and examines the cleavage between Indians and other races over political rights vis-a-vis the South African state. It also offers a typology contrasting ethnic entrepreneurs with semi-privileged proletarians in terms of the differing economic status gaps they occupy. Furthermore, it illustrates how Indians occupy a political status gap in a complex settler colonial society like South Africa.","PeriodicalId":52000,"journal":{"name":"New Contree","volume":"219 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88078636","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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