Showing papers in "Journal of Southern African Studies in 2009"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the range of cultural events and activities that were promoted by the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) under the banner of the Third Chimurenga.
Abstract: This article examines the range of cultural events and activities that were promoted by the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) in the 2000s under the banner of the Third Chimurenga. It contributes to a lively debate on post-2000 cultural imaginings of a fetishised nation riddled by contestations over state power. The article posits that the ‘cultural’ nationalism that was promoted through the Third Chimurenga emerged partly as a political response to the failures of ‘developmental’ nationalism of the 1980s and 1990s, and partly as a continuation and intensification of the earlier imaginings of Zimbabwe that dated back to the 1960s. Through a range of cultural activities, the ruling party sought to legitimise its continued rule in the face of the challenges posed by the increasingly popular Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and the growing number of civil society organisations. Through the specific genre of the ‘music gala’, cultural nationalism came to attribute new meanin...
94 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors developed a theoretical explanation for the seemingly indiscriminate violence used by RENAMO during the civil war in Mozambique, a phenomenon that dominant theories on civil war violence cannot account for fully.
Abstract: This article develops a theoretical explanation for the seemingly indiscriminate violence used by RENAMO during the civil war in Mozambique, a phenomenon that dominant theories on civil war violence cannot account for fully. The analysis builds on interviews with the RENAMO leadership and Mozambican academics as well as secondary sources on the patterns of violence. It concludes that RENAMO used mass violence to weaken the support for the government and create war fatigue. The main strategy was to cause enough damage to pressure the government into entering negotiations. The use of most violence against civilians in those areas where the population was believed to support the government, in combination with a clear objective to destabilise the government and a disciplined military organisation, support the argument that mass violence was employed to demonstrate ‘the power to hurt’.
79 citations
TL;DR: Oshikango, the main Namibian border post to Angola, is perhaps the most impressive example of that change as discussed by the authors, where a forgotten outpost has developed into a sprawling boom town.
Abstract: Angola's economic re-integration into the Southern African region profoundly changes the economic and political landscape in the neighbouring countries. Apart from the country's new political influence, Angolan buying power leads to an economic boom in formerly marginal places along its borders. Oshikango, the main Namibian border post to Angola, is perhaps the most impressive example of that change. Over the last 12 years, a forgotten outpost has developed into a sprawling boom town. In the first part of this article, I trace the town's development and give an outline of the different economic activities that were instrumental in it. A second part concentrates on the role of the border for the town's development and the construction of Namibian political and economic identity. While state regulations are enforced on both sides on the border, the transit between them is under-regulated and provides the economic opportunities that fuel the boom. The third part then looks at regulation within the boom town ...
56 citations
Abstract: The end of apartheid created great expectations for the majority of South Africans in terms of political, but also social and economic change. At first glance, significant progress has undoubtedly taken place, beginning with the adoption of a very progressive Constitution and legislation protecting civil, economic and social rights. However, 15 years into democracy, after a fourth free general election, many feel that their expectations have not been met, and their frustration is turning violent, as demonstrated by several large-scale strikes since 2006. Politically, this frustration has led to a blunt repudiation of the country's leadership during the ANC conference of December 2007 and to Jacob Zuma's ANC unambiguous victory during the 2009 general elections, despite the formation of a breakaway party. This article explores these frustrations through the evolutions that have taken place in the workplace – a central locus of exploitation under apartheid – since the late 1980s; it highlights the necessity...
40 citations
TL;DR: Katima Mulilo has become a busy stopover point along the Trans Caprivi Corridor (TCC), which links the Copperbelt of Zambia with Namibia's sea port of Walvis Bay as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Rapid construction of new ‘transport corridors’ across the SADC region is supposed to facilitate the free flow of commodities, tourism and investment between ‘valuable places’ in Southern Africa and global markets. Since the opening of a road bridge across the Zambezi in 2004, Katima Mulilo has become a busy stopover point along the Trans Caprivi Corridor (TCC), which links the Copperbelt of Zambia with Namibia's sea port of Walvis Bay. The new transport route has at last fulfilled the colonial dream that motivated the Anglo-German exchange of territory, which originally established the ‘access corridor to the Zambezi’ in 1890. Katima's current investment boom seems to give substance to the SWAPO government's official agenda of ‘bringing development’ to Caprivi, nearly a decade after an armed insurgency attempted its secession. But beyond the apparent success story, Katima Mulilo's boom is illustrative of a broader reconfiguration of the nature of state sovereignty, engendered by two distinct but interrel...
34 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors proposed that the new linguistic usages entail highly creative and at times subversive potential and energy, and that the widespread use of new media such as the internet not only strongly enhances the blending of languages and the creation of new idioms but also establishes international ties within a language community.
Abstract: Code-switching and the emergence of new hybrid languages are common in contemporary urban culture in Africa. While the linguistic and sociological aspects of switching between Shona and English in Zimbabwe has been widely analysed, this article proposes that the new linguistic usages entail highly creative and at times subversive potential and energy. The widespread use of new media such as the internet not only strongly enhances the blending of languages and the creation of new idioms but also establishes international ties within a language community. A close reading of the lyrics and the style of musical hits will demonstrate how bilingualism serves the agents of popular culture to create a local artistic flavour within a global setting. Compared with the prolific use of code-switching and slang in the lyrics of songs, the domain of Shona literature shows a greater reluctance to experiment with language. However, the examples of A.C. Moyo's play Pane Nyaya and of Ignatius Mabasa's novel Mapenzi illustr...
31 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors provide an historical analysis of Northern Sotho radio during the apartheid era, exploring the motives for its establishment and its control mechanisms over listenership, staffing and programming.
Abstract: In 1960, the South African Broadcasting Corporation launched Radio Bantu as a fully-fledged station for African listeners in their different languages. Intended to operate as the apartheid state's propaganda channel, vernacular radio came to find resonance among millions of African listeners. This study provides an historical analysis of Northern Sotho radio during the apartheid era, exploring the motives for its establishment and its control mechanisms over listenership, staffing and programming. It argues, firstly, that while black announcers in general shaped the nature of North Sotho ethnicity through their work as broadcasters, some quite wilfully subverted white control by slipping in unseen messages to their listeners through the thicket of language. Secondly, the channel's popularity among listeners was determined not only by the wide variety of programmes but, most importantly, by the novelty of North Sotho broadcasting on mass radio by native speakers of the language. And finally, the founding o...
29 citations
TL;DR: This article explored aspects of the ideological and the moral framework around which anti-apartheid sentiment began to crystallise in Britain in the late 1950s, focusing on the activities of the well-known "turbulent priests" who pioneered the campaign against apartheid in Britain: Michael Scott, Trevor Huddleston and Canon John Collins.
Abstract: Recent studies have begun to sketch the history of the Anti-Apartheid Movement in Britain, providing a convincing framework for understanding the transnational nature of the movement and its significance within the emergence of a global civil society. This article expands upon this work by exploring aspects of the ideological and the moral framework around which anti-apartheid sentiment began to crystallise in Britain in the late 1950s. Drawing on archival material from Church archives in both Britain and South Africa, as well as the expansive papers of the Africa Bureau, it focuses upon the activities of the well-known ‘turbulent priests’ who pioneered the campaign against apartheid in Britain: Michael Scott, Trevor Huddleston and Canon John Collins. It considers their status as the heirs of nineteenth-century humanitarianism before sketching the development of a Christian critique of South African racial policies during the 1930s and 1940s. The article then outlines the emergence of Michael Scott as a p...
28 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the most crucial aspect of the anti-apartheid movement was its construction of transnational networks and forms of action, and the central dimensions of the action forms and identification processes.
Abstract: The global anti-apartheid movement mobilised millions of people who took part in boycotts and demonstrations. Despite the significance of the anti-apartheid movement, actual research on its nature as a transnational movement has been meagre. Most research on the anti-apartheid movement has focused on its national aspects, looking, for example, at the Australian, American, British or South African anti-apartheid movements. In this article, I argue that the most crucial aspect of this movement was its construction of transnational networks and forms of action. The central dimensions of the action forms and identification processes of the anti-apartheid struggle are analysed; historical continuities as well as discontinuities are investigated; and the movement is related to relevant political and historical contexts. The analysis is based on historical documents and interviews with 52 activists in four countries, and intends to make a contribution to the interrelated theoretical debates on (a) the relations ...
27 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined assumptions about the provision of support for children and young people in child-headed households in sub-Saharan Africa, and revealed the value of taking generational constructions into account in assessing c...
Abstract: This article examines assumptions about the provision of support for children and young people in child-headed households in sub-Saharan Africa. The South African example is used to assess appropriate family- and community-based support and assistance. The South African Children's Act proposes that child-headed households should be supported by an adult mentor, who will act in the children and young people's best interests. However, qualitative research among child-headed households in Port Elizabeth shows that so-called ‘adult support’ mostly does not contribute to children and young people's well-being. Children and young people often are not consulted about care arrangements, are not taken seriously, or are even worse off after adult interventions, resulting in many having a sense of powerlessness over their situation. An emphasis on access to social grants increases the potential for abuse of these youngsters. The study reveals the value of taking generational constructions into account in assessing c...
27 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a review of 45 court cases of land conflict in the Thyolo and Mangochi districts shows that the inherent ambiguities in customary tenure make accumulation of landholdings difficult and often serve the interests of the poor.
Abstract: It has been argued that the ambiguities in Malawian customary tenure may aggravate processes of social differentiation and class formation. The article investigates this claim based primarily on data from the rural areas in the Southern Region. An analysis of the political economy at the national and local level indicates that accumulation of customary land is not a significant factor accounting for increased economic differences. At the same time, land distribution in smallholder agriculture remains quite equal. A review of 45 court cases of land conflict in the Thyolo and Mangochi districts shows that the inherent ambiguities in customary tenure make accumulation of landholdings difficult and often serve the interests of the poor. Wealthy people prefer to invest in private land that the government has allocated to estates outside the realm of customary tenure, and the various logics of customary law in the long run facilitate a re-appropriation of private land into customary land. The article maintains ...
TL;DR: From Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm (1883) to Van Niekerk's Agaat (2004), the farm novel has reflected South Africa's experience of colonial conflict, white supremacy, gender struggle and nationalism as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: From Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm (1883) to Van Niekerk's Agaat (2004), the farm novel has reflected South Africa's experience of colonial conflict, white supremacy, gender struggle and nationalism. Revisited at key historical moments, the farm novel describes a deterministic relationship between genre and ideology, drawing attention to the role a particular fictional mode has played in justifying the disenfranchisement of blacks and the disempowerment of women. The social context in which the Afrikaans farm novel developed was one of emerging Afrikaner nationalism; it lent credibility to a story about Afrikaners' rural origins that provided an illusion of continuity in South African history and a description of an unchanging Afrikaner identity. Since the 1960s, leftist Afrikaans writers, concerned with the role the early farm novel played in promoting white supremacy, have rewritten it in order to deconstruct its themes and tropes. J.M. Coetzee's English-medium challenge to the farm novel gen...
TL;DR: The publication of a special issue of this journal devoted to the entwined histories of the Southern African liberation struggles and international solidarity has been timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the birth of Nelson Mandela as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The publication of a special issue of this journal devoted to the entwined histories of the Southern African liberation struggles and international solidarity has been timed to coincide with the 50...
TL;DR: The authors investigates the anomaly in apartheid history of the ruling National Party's (NP) fielding a "pro-gay rights" candidate in the Hillbrow constituency during the 1987 whites-only election in South Africa.
Abstract: This article investigates the anomaly in apartheid history of the ruling National Party's (NP) fielding a ‘pro-gay rights’ candidate in the Hillbrow constituency during the 1987 whites-only election in South Africa. The NP was aided in its Hillbrow campaign by the gay magazine Exit, which encouraged its readership to ‘vote gay’ in the election and published a list of candidates who were favourable to gay rights in South Africa. The Hillbrow campaign is intelligible when the intersections between race and sexuality are analysed and the discourses wielded by the NP and Exit are spatially and historically situated. The Hillbrow/Exit gay rights campaign articulated discourses about the reform of apartheid in white self-interest and conflated white minority and gay minority rights, thereby contributing to the NP's justification for apartheid. The NP candidate's defeat of the incumbent Progressive Federal Party (PFP) MP for Hillbrow, Alf Widman, was trumpeted by Exit as a powerful victory and advance for gay rights in South Africa, but the result provoked a sharp backlash among many white gay men and lesbian women who organised to openly identify with the liberation movement. The Exit/Hillbrow campaign problematises the singular assumptions that are often made about race and sexuality in apartheid South Africa, and illustrates how political, social and economic crisis can provoke reconfigurations of identities vis-a-vis the status quo.
TL;DR: This paper used radio broadcasting as a lens into the fraught relationship between the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party during exile, and discussed the role of radio in the context of the camp mutinies in Angola.
Abstract: This article uses radio broadcasting as a lens into the fraught relationship between the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party during exile. Unlike the armed struggle, which waxed and waned, radio broadcasting remained a constant preoccupation for many constituencies within this alliance. This article provides several examples of the growing emphasis on radio broadcasting during the three decades of exile, explores the theoretical underpinnings of this strategic turn, and concludes with a discussion of the role of radio in the context of the camp mutinies in Angola. During this time, radio broadcasting underwent a significant transformation, beginning as a clandestine voice in the dark and ending as a significant means of public representation with a truly international reach. To illuminate this history, I will bring some of the literature on broadcasting in Africa into conversation with the voluminous writings on the South African exile community.
TL;DR: The history, geography and culture of exile in that place, to provide the missing dimensions of time and space, and to trace the changing relationship between the movement and its two main ‘homes’.
Abstract: Liberal and other critics of the ANC in government in South Africa frequently refer to the malign influence of ‘exile’ on the culture of the party, citing alleged secrecy, paranoia and lack of internal democracy, as the inevitable consequences of the years spent abroad – but they do this without much knowledge of the real experience of exile This article focuses on the ANC in Zambia, specifically Lusaka, and seeks to examine the history, geography and culture of exile in that place, to provide the missing dimensions of time and space, and to trace the changing relationship between the movement and its two main ‘homes’ – Zambia and South Africa The article examines the changing status of the ANC in Zambia from one among many Zambia-based liberation movements in the 1960s and 1970s to a predominant position in the 1980s, as its exile population increased, and it developed the bureaucratic structures of a government-in-waiting The ANC's headquarters in Zambia gained in importance as its members were pushe
TL;DR: The authors re-read three early twenty-first century South African novels (Achmat Dangor's Bitter Fruit, Kabelo Sello Duiker's The Quiet Violence of Dreams, and Ishtiyaq Shukri's The Silent Minaret) in the context of the May 2008 events, arguing that the figure of the foreigner, apparently marginal in all three narratives, is in fact central to their ethical project, which seeks redemption, renewal and redefinition of the South African identity through an identification with the foreign other.
Abstract: The outburst of xenophobic violence that shook South Africa in May 2008 severely damaged the belief in a multicultural society. This article re-reads three early twenty-first century South African novels – Achmat Dangor's Bitter Fruit (2001), Kabelo Sello Duiker's The Quiet Violence of Dreams (2001), and Ishtiyaq Shukri's The Silent Minaret (2005) – in the context of the May 2008 events. It is argued that the figure of the foreigner, apparently marginal in all three narratives, is in fact central to their ethical project, which seeks redemption, renewal and redefinition of the South African identity through an identification with the foreign other. The affective impulses of hospitality and friendship directed towards the foreigner in Dangor, Duiker and Shukri are read not merely as accepting or welcoming alterity, but as instances of self-othering – becoming strange in one's own domain. Expressing disillusionment with the liberatory potential of the narrative of the anti-apartheid struggle, they provide a...
TL;DR: The authors analyzed selected anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) activities designed to publicise political prisoners and detainees, highlighting the role of the liberation movements in fighting apartheid and highlighting the difficulties faced by specific people caught up in the South African judicial system.
Abstract: This article analyses selected Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) activities designed to publicise political prisoners and detainees. The political prisoner campaign was one way in which the AAM highlighted the role of the liberation movements fighting apartheid. It illustrates how the AAM not only played a key part in exposing the immorality of apartheid, but also in popularising the liberation movements, and especially the African National Congress (ANC). All AAM activity broadly supported the liberation movements, informed British public opinion on conditions in South Africa, and aimed to change British government policy. However, certain actions focused more specifically on popularising the liberation movements and specific members in these movements. Political prisoner campaigns showed the difficulties faced by specific people caught up in the South African judicial system and the way in which the South African government used trials and jail sentences to weaken the liberation movements. On the one hand, ...
TL;DR: The hegemony of Marxist approaches to the study of stratification in South Africa has obscured the prominence of Weberian contributions between the late 1940s and the early 1970s as discussed by the authors, which focused on the nascent black middle class, paying particular attention to the importance of status.
Abstract: The hegemony of Marxist approaches to the study of stratification in South Africa has obscured the prominence of Weberian contributions between the late 1940s and the early 1970s. Some of these Weberian studies focused on the nascent black middle class, paying particular attention to the importance of status. Others, influenced by the literature on the American South, used the concept of caste as an extreme form of status in analysing the relationship between race and class in South Africa. Whilst flawed, these studies did directly address aspects of South Africans' everyday lives – and especially interactions – that the subsequent structural Marxists side-stepped and with which neo-Marxist social historians struggled.
TL;DR: In this article, a story of violence and counter violence in a rural village in Matabeleland North as it has been told to Solidarity Peace Trust researchers over the course of several months in 2008.
Abstract: This article provides a personal reflection on the experience of human rights reporting in Zimbabwe from 2000. It does so through the prism of a story of violence and counter violence in a rural village in Matabeleland North as it has been told to Solidarity Peace Trust researchers over the course of several months in 2008. The story, which hinges on the fate of three dinner plates, is retold here with the aim of revealing the ways in which lived experiences of violence can blur the categorical boundaries of perpetrator and victim. It sheds light on some of the complexities of histories of violence, the ways violent events are narrated by those involved and blame is attributed. Such complexities are inevitably overlooked, excised or circumvented in the conventions of human rights reporting. Yet recognising such local complexities, and appreciating the ways in which collective attribution of blame can escalate cycles of violence, is a necessary part of any process of healing. Failure to recognise these com...
TL;DR: The year is 2002, the place Muidumbe, the northerly cradle of the Mozambican Liberation Struggle, and widespread rumours accuse the local post-socialist elite of manipulating a group of lion-men and engaging in organ trafficking with an international alliance of vampires.
Abstract: The year is 2002, the place Muidumbe, northerly cradle of the Mozambican Liberation Struggle. Lions devouring people, and people lynching sorcerers suspected of magically fabricating lions, unleash a crisis that soon assumes a political dimension. Widespread rumours accuse the local post-socialist elite of manipulating a group of lion-men and engaging in organ trafficking with an international alliance of vampires. Disempowered youth lynchers stage a paradoxical uprising. This article details the unfolding of this crisis over a year, and discusses its broader implications. Are contemporary sorcery crises a deflected effect of ‘millennial capitalism’? To what extent can occult rumours be interpreted as idioms that express political agency in metaphors? What is the role of the media and of cultural brokers in propagating rumours and crystallising collective anxieties in recognisable forms? How is one to understand the rationality, if any, of witch-hunts? Focusing on the forms and the effects of violence, a ...
TL;DR: The history of cattle in the Angolan-Namibian border region between 1890 and 1990, however, complicates the resulting unilinear Nature-to-Culture narratives of environmental change as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Models of environmental change derived from the Nature–Culture dichotomy posit a pre-colonial state of Nature subsistence economy that is penetrated by a colonial market economy Culture. In the modernisation paradigm of environmental change, the interaction is seen as positive: (natural) resources are more effectively used. In the declinist and inclinist paradigms, the result is environmental degradation. The history of cattle in the Angolan-Namibian border region between 1890 and 1990, however, complicates the resulting unilinear Nature-to-Culture narratives of environmental change. In fact, the region's cattle were a global market commodity before the colonial conquest; only during and because of colonial rule did cattle become a resource for local subsistence. Colonial officials and experts who by their own admittance were unwilling and unable to ‘modernise’ the cattle sector raised the alarm over overgrazing, deforestation, and desertification. Yet there is little evidence to support their claims of s...
TL;DR: In this paper, the impact of generational tensions between Mozambican youth and FRELIMO party elders during the anti-colonial war at the secondary school in Dar es Salaam was examined.
Abstract: This article addresses a lacuna in analyses of FRELIMO's nationalist development during the 1960s. Specifically, the article examines the impact of generational tensions between Mozambican youth and FRELIMO party ‘elders’ that emerged during the anti-colonial war at the FRELIMO secondary school in Dar es Salaam. The main argument is that under the auspices of the Mozambique Institute, which operated almost exclusively in Tanzania, the FRELIMO secondary school was a site of significant intergenerational tensions that affected the liberation movement during a particularly critical moment of its anti-colonial war against Portugal. This analysis is particularly relevant for the issue of generational tensions and may help to encourage historians of contemporary Africa to (re)consider how African nationalist groups, operating within another nation's sovereign space, could build legitimacy and establish hegemony. This article, then, also indirectly argues that FRELIMO was able to utilise sovereign space within T...
TL;DR: The authors explores the early history of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park (GLTP), highlighting differences in perceptions of the benefits and risks associated with transfrontier projects, and continuities with the conflicts characterising the GLTP today.
Abstract: This article explores the early history of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park (GLTP) In 1927, a year after the Kruger National Park was created, authorities from the Union of South Africa approached their Portuguese counterparts to request that a similar reservation be created on the Mozambican side of the border contiguous to Kruger Similar requests were made to and by Southern Rhodesian authorities This article describes the tensions and conflicts surrounding these early proposals for transboundary conservation, highlighting differences in perceptions of the benefits and risks associated with transfrontier projects, and continuities with the conflicts characterising the GLTP today In Southern Rhodesia, the plans were embraced by businessmen as a wildlife-based tourism initiative and conservation was justified through its revenue-generating potential Yet influential players in Rhodesia and Mozambique undermined the proposals as they felt the plan was a risky gamble that could jeopardise cattle ran
TL;DR: The 1970s were a pivotal decade in the Southern African liberation struggle as discussed by the authors, and the Black Consciousness Movement and the growth of independent trade unions signalled the emergence of a new resistance.
Abstract: The 1970s were a pivotal decade in the Southern African liberation struggle. In 1975 Mozambique and Angola won their independence from Portugal, transforming the Southern African region. In South Africa, after a period in the late 1960s when internal opposition seemed crushed, the Black Consciousness Movement and the growth of independent trade unions signalled the growth of a new resistance. At the same time, changing attitudes to race in a postcolonial world made apartheid more difficult to defend. Even international corporations, whose high rates of profit depended on the subsistence wages they paid their black employees, needed to find an acceptable rationale for continuing to invest in South Africa. These changes threw up new challenges for the British Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM). The establishment of Marxist governments in the former Portuguese colonies and the involvement of Cuba in Angola thrust Southern Africa into the frontline of the Cold War. It was unclear how the emergence of the new movem...
TL;DR: The 1987 mine workers' strike was a major confrontation between the National Union of Mineworkers and mine management as mentioned in this paper, and the settlement of the 1987 strike represented a short-term victory for authoritarian mine managements and defeat for the union, in the longer term it kept open the possibility of an industrial relations system with full union participation.
Abstract: The 1987 mine workers' strike was obviously a major confrontation between the National Union of Mineworkers and mine management. This article, however, seeks to demonstrate that divisions within management (especially in the Anglo-American Corporation) had important implications not only for the outcome of the strike but also for the potential for institutionalisation on the mines of an industrial relations system based on negotiation rather than confrontation. Disagreement about management styles ran through Anglo-American Corporation from head office down to individual mine managers and their respective industrial relations staffs. While the settlement of the 1987 strike represented a short-term victory for authoritarian mine managements and defeat for the union, in the longer term it kept open the possibility of an industrial relations system with full union participation.
TL;DR: The authors argued that government propaganda was a response to political paranoia and insecurity in the face of an uncertain future, and that Smith's propaganda was not as successful as sometimes assumed and was not effective enough to fully counter alternative opinions.
Abstract: Recent work on media and propaganda in Zimbabwe has focused on media politics in the contemporary crisis. Most of these studies do not examine the circumstances that created the propaganda or the responses of the recipients. Some commentators have created the impression that government propaganda easily supplanted alternative opinions. This article analyses the development of Rhodesian propaganda from 1962 to 1970. It argues that far from being a sign of the strength of the Rhodesian Front (RF) regime, government propaganda was a response to political paranoia and insecurity in the face of an uncertain future. Smith's propaganda was not as successful as sometimes assumed and was not effective enough to fully counter alternative opinions.
TL;DR: This article explored the transnational dimension of anti-colonational protest and resistance in mandated South West Africa during the period between the First and Second World Wars and argued that marginalised communities were able to alleviate some of the harsh effects of colonial rule by articulating their dissent in an international forum.
Abstract: This article explores the transnational dimension of anti-colonial protest and resistance in mandated South West Africa during the period between the First and Second World Wars. In its capacity as a mandatory power, the South African government had to operate within the parameters of trusteeship laid down by the League of Nations. The Western Allies intended that the League's Permanent Mandates Commission monitor a ‘reformed’ type of imperialism. However, colonised peoples eagerly responded to the Wilsonian message of national self-determination by complaining to the League about the infringement of the principles of self-governance. Focusing on the extensive petitioning campaign of the Rehoboth Basters in South West Africa as a case study, this article argues that marginalised communities were able to alleviate some of the harsh effects of colonial rule by articulating their dissent in an international forum.
TL;DR: The Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Act of 2003 as mentioned in this paper was meant to transform traditional chieftaincy so that it was consistent with those newly established democratic values and institutions, but despite these goals, the Act fails to clarify the precise nature of traditional authority.
Abstract: This article analyses the debate and passage of the Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Act of 2003. Through an examination of the passage of this Act, I demonstrate how traditional leaders, the ANC-led government, and civil society organisations each imagine the role of ‘tradition’ and chieftaincy in South Africa and how these different notions were accommodated in the final legislation. After the recognition of traditional leaders in the interim (1993) and final constitutions (1996), there has been a great deal of confusion concerning the responsibilities of traditional leaders in South Africa's new democratic dispensation. This Act sought to clarify this issue. In addition, the Act was meant to ‘transform’ chieftaincy so that it was consistent with those newly established democratic values and institutions. Despite these goals, I argue that the Act fails to clarify the precise nature of ‘traditional’ authority. Instead, the Act formally links chieftaincy with local government institutions a...
TL;DR: In this paper, the reputation of television actors in post-Mobutu Kinshasa, a city where charismatic Christianity predominates within the public imaginary, is investigated, in order to understand the social and cultural dynamics of media celebrity.
Abstract: Media celebrity, or public status achieved through mass media, is a particular kind of social distinction that appears in most contemporary societies. It is difficult to predict what qualities define celebrity, since the associations conjured up by their names, and the meanings attributed to them, differ from one social context to another. Empirical research is needed in order to understand how celebrities' reputations are construed. This article focuses on the reputation of television actors in post-Mobutu Kinshasa, a city where charismatic Christianity predominates within the public imaginary. The public identity of Kinshasa's television stars, audience reactions to artists' performances, and collective evaluations of these mass-mediated public figures are informed by culturally-rooted approaches toward imitation and the mediation of charisma. This article argues that in order to understand the social and cultural dynamics of media celebrity, we need to examine how, in a given society, connections betwe...