History Of Apartheid Research Articles

Apartheid, 1948–1994 by Saul Dubow; Inside South Africa’s Foreign Policy: Diplomacy in Africa from Smuts to Mbeki by John Siko

Reviewed by: Roel van der Velde (), School of Languages and Area Studies, University of Portsmouth, UKAs the fourth African National Congress (ANC) leader to become the president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma once boasted that the party which had defeated racial segregation would rule the country until Jesus comes.[1] Twenty years on, the once exemplary democracy sees its very institutions crumbling under cronyism and corruption. Even before his 2016 Speech of the Nation was heckled by opposition, Zuma found himself grappling with disgruntled voters, racial tensions, and a largely self-inflicted economic crisis.[2] To fully understand present-day South African politics requires an understanding of the country's past. Two books published on South African political history in 2014 can help us gain just that.The first study is by Professor Saul Dubow of Queen Mary University of London, who has written extensively about his native country. His latest book focuses on the ideology and practice of apartheid and the way they were understood and resisted. The other book, by diplomat-scholar John Siko, focuses on political networks involved in South African foreign policy formulation. It examines the extent to which formerly disenfranchised groups have overcome the system of apartheid. Siko finished his research while working at the US embassy in Cape Town. Together, the books offer a comprehensive view of political mobilization under apartheid and its democratic successor.Building ideologies, resisting powerDubow has written a reintegrated history of the many sides of apartheid, woven from budding from below and an analysis of apartheid state power (ix). His study in state ideology and the social counter-movements resisting its implementation covers the span from the 1948 Malan government to the election of majority government in 1994. Throughout this period, an ideological conflict was fought between and among generations of government officials, social movements, and affected populations.Interaction constitutes the central theme of Dubow's book: the initiatives and exchanges of government and various societal actors. Dubow reintroduces contingency and historicity to the dusty narratives of apartheid and resistance. He synthesizes old and new scholarship on a host of political, biographical, and cultural dimensions and has a keen eye for diversities of gender, race, and language. This often leads him to revise the actual importance of events that would enter resistance lore. To give but one example, the Sharpeville massacre of 21 March 1960 was neither the worst example of callous government policies at that time, the author maintains, nor was the ANC's subsequent choice for armed resistance as inevitable or uniformly shared as later contended.Dubow's elaborate rebuttal of rise-and-fall histories of apartheid describes the socio-economic, ideological, and spatial dimensions that combined to assure the surprising longevity of that system. From a winning 1948 electoral slogan and then ambivalent administrative segregation, apartheid became a robust ideology of Afrikaner Christian-nationalism that secured the dream of the 1961 republic, free from British tutelage. Separate development would become an article of faith, but its success had not been inevitable, nor was it secure. Accordingly, the eight loosely chronological chapters have the same move-and-countermove character.Retracing the idea of apartheid from its colonial-era components to its 1960s hubris and traversal in the late 1980s shows the many turns in racist policy. Constantly evolving militant and military movements combined with ever-changing economic and international contexts to upset the governmental fiction of segregated and contented tribal nations. Even so, divisive measures and forced relocations hit populations unevenly, and resistance to them was not unified or wholly black. …

Succession Planning in Black-Owned Family Businesses: A South African Perspective

A significant number of businesses existing in South Africa originated as family-owned businesses and contribute substantially to employment creation, poverty eradication and wealth creation. However, globally the longevity of family businesses through generations remains a major cause for concern for all stakeholders. South African economy is characterised by a history of apartheid, where prior to 1994, the black majority only owned less than 5 percent of the businesses active in the economy. The economy is swiftly taking a turn and more black businesses are emerging. This study focused on understanding the factors that influence succession planning decisions in black-owned family businesses. The study followed an exploratory qualitative approach, using semi-structured interviews. Thirteen black family-owned business owners were interviewed. The key findings showed that possible successors in family-owned businesses regard the successor-related factors as the predominant drivers of management succession. The successor’s commitment to and interest in the business has a strong influence on decisions and criteria design across all the stages of the management succession process.

Working with religious leaders and faith communities to advance culturally informed strategies to address violence against women

abstractSouth Africa (SA), a country with a long history of colonialism and apartheid is faced with the enormous problem of gender-based violence against women in intimate relationships and public spaces because of the intricacies of white supremacy and patriarchy. Research indicates that South African women live in one of the most religious – yet most violent - societies in the world. Around 90% of its population ascribe to religious practice. Studies indicate that one in four women find themselves in abusive relationships. Research also points out that while many victims/ survivors use faith as a coping mechanism and that they often approach their religious leaders and faith communities for help, perpetrators use easily misinterpreted scriptures, religious teachings and cultural practices to support abusive behaviour. Feminist theologians and practitioners note that although the rights discourse is an essential democratic value (in a post-apartheid South Africa), it is not in itself an effective intervention strategy in contexts where religion (embedded in culture) is a social determinant of hierarchical gender power-relations. Skewed gender-power relations are justified by suggesting that hierarchical gender power-relations are ‘ordered’ by God. The idea that gender equality is incompatible with traditional family values is also promoted within some conservative faith communities. The South African Faith and Family Institute (SAFFI), a multi-faith non-profit organisation was established in 2008 to address the faith dimensions of violence against women (VAW) and to be a resource to religious leaders and faith communities in advancing culturally informed strategies and interventions that promote equal and more loving relationships between intimate partners. This article will reflect on SAFFI’s work in the hope that it contributes to the broader pool of new thinking and debate on women’s rights and gender equality as it relates to local faith communities in the Western Cape, South Africa.

Truth, Reconciliation, and “Double Settler Denial”: Gendering the Canada-South Africa Analogy

Appeals to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) haunt most post-1990s institutional attempts to address historical injustice. Comparing Canada and South Africa, Nagy (2012) notes that “loose analogizing” has hampered the application of important lessons from the South African to the Canadian TRC—namely, the discovery that “narrow approaches to truth collude with superficial views of reconciliation that deny continuities of violence.” Taking up her important specification of the Canada-South Africa analogy, we expand Nagy’s recent findings by gendering the continuum of settler colonial violence in both locations and by outlining the implications of these TRCs for Indigenous and Black women in particular. In both the Canadian attempt to grapple with the legacy of residential schools and the South African effort to deal with a history of apartheid, institutional approaches to truth have been both narrow and androcentric. The simultaneous historical bounding and social consolidation of Indigenous experiences of abuse and injustice has thus produced a “double settler denial.”

Compassionate leadership? Some reflections on the work and life of Michael Lapsley

In June 2007, I had the privilege of attending a Healing of Memories workshop lead by Father Michael Lapsley, one of the founder members of the Institute for Healing of Memories. The purpose of the workshop was to help the predominantly white members of a middle class Dutch Reformed congregation in the Northern Suburbs of Cape Town and the predominantly coloured members of a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Elsies River on the Cape Flats, to share their stories of the past with regard to apartheid with each other. Apart from the stories that were told and the sharing of experiences about the apartheid history that took place, I was struck by the way in which Father Lapsley conducted the workshop. There was a deep compassion for all the participants as was embodied through the way in which he treated each of us with respect. But apart from his cordiality in leading the workshop, one could sense a deeper source of compassion, a source revealing a compassionate understanding of God�s presence amidst the violence and turmoil in our broken world. The aim of this article is to reflect on whether one could speak of something like �compassionate leadership�, and to take a closer look at the relationship between compassion and God images in the life and work of Michael Lapsley. Special attention will be given to the way in which he exercises leadership through his many involvements related to his own personal story of trauma.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article presents literary research on the notion of compassionate leadership as a specific kind of leadership. The results indicate that the leadership of Father Michael Lapsley does indeed portray features of this kind of leadership. The research can become the source for finding new strategies for religious leadership.

Sexual Intimacy Constructions of Heterosexual Couples Living in a Low-Income, “Colored,” Farmworker Community in South Africa

This study has been motivated by the scarcity of research that adopts an unproblematic focus on sexuality in South African Black and Colored low-income communities. We explored the sexual intimacy constructions of 15 Colored married/cohabiting couples who live in a low-income, historical South African farmworker community. Using a social constructionist thematic analysis method, we identified four themes: (a) metaphoric and indirect sexual language; (b) the use of a romantic discourse to talk about sexual experiences; (c) male-centered sexual relationships; and (d) lack of privacy brings both restriction and pleasure. We consider how these themes may be linked to the participants’ community context and colonial and apartheid history. Finally, we emphasize the need for research that also explores positive sex functions and experiences rather than focuses narrowly on problematic sexual behavior.

Imraan Coovadia’s Post-transitional Palimpsest

It is widely accepted that South African literature has undergone considerable thematic and stylistic shifts since the transitional decade of the 1990s. However, literary scholarship is divided not only as to the extent of these shifts but also as to what should be emphasised when mapping their contours. In this article, I focus on two of Imraan Coovadia’s recent novels that point to a post-transitional literary landscape in South Africa. Focusing particularly on The Institute for Taxi Poetry (2012) and Tales of the Metric System (2014), I use the concept of the palimpsest to think through the internal logic of these two novels and their locatedness within the post-transitional present. In these texts, Coovadia inscribes imaginative possibilities over the histories of apartheid and the transition in a way that renders multiple narrative temporalities and discourses legible simultaneously. In particular, I focus on the way in which this post-transitional palimpsest defamiliarises apartheid and transition-era understandings of history and nation.

Winnie, Opera, and South African Artistic Nationhood

ABSTRACTPositioned within a nexus of themes in early 21st-century South Africa, Winnie: The Opera reflects the nation's desire to re-define itself artistically after its brutal colonial and apartheid history. Through the subject matter of a living controversial woman in politics (Winnie Madikizela-Mandela), the use of English and isiXhosa languages along with video excerpts from the South African Broadcasting Corporation coverage of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and a musical language that includes traditional African music integrated with a western European operatic style, the opera brings together modern sensibilities that help express who South Africa is in the early millennium. In an analysis that positions Winnie in dialogue with traditional western European opera, this article also looks to opera in the United States a model for how stories about politics, race and ethnicity, and controversy are well borne out in opera as a genre. By highlighting the TRC in the beginning and finale, Winnie: The Opera presents new opportunities for South Africa and the world to deal with a horrendous past that wraps gender, politics, and nation together.

ALCOHOL PANIC, SOCIAL ENGINEERING, AND SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE MANAGEMENT OF WHITES IN EARLY APARTHEID SOCIETY, 1948–1960

AbstractThe connection between ideologies of nation, alcohol abuse, and social engineering have not received systematic attention from historians. This article offers a case-study from the history of apartheid South Africa. Working around a fragment of apartheid history, a bureaucratic panic that excessive white drinking threatened the stability of the racial order, it explores geneaologies of state responses to white drinking in South Africa. It then concentrates on the role of Geoffrey Cronje, an intellectual / bureaucrat who not only drove the panic but then used it to implement new forms of social engineering in white South African society. Drawing on penal and welfarist traditions as well as medical models of treatment, he introduced a system for the discipline and correction of whites who drank heavily that drew on both state and private resources. I examine how the defiance of those incarcerated for drinking helped shaped subsequent, lighter-handed responses that managed the drinking of greater numbers of whites. This article may provide avenues for investigating alcohol abuse, state intervention, and social engineering in a range of mid-twentieth-century societies.

Dealing with disparities: the teaching and assessment of official languages at first language level in the grade 12 school-leaving phase in South Africa

Disparities emanating from South Africa's apartheid history still pose a number of challenges to the country, especially in education. Since the transition to democracy in 1994, the prescribed government school curriculum has undergone several revisions in an endeavour to set standards and provide instruction of a high quality. On the language education front, laws and policies have been adopted to ensure, inter alia, the maintenance and development of the 11 official languages and the granting of parity of esteem as required by the country's constitution. Notwithstanding the fact that the objective of an equal and quality education may take considerable time to achieve, the ongoing provision of an education of an undesirable standard two decades into democracy could be seen as undermining the constitution and as a perpetuating form of injustice. This paper problematises the equalisation of educational standards against the historical background of the country and provides a critical overview of initiatives taken by education authorities to introduce a more equitable system. The conclusion reached is that policy is not translating into effective practice and that insufficient attention is being devoted to the standard of teaching and assessment of the school language subjects, placing them in a weak position for use in linguistically challenging (higher register) domains.

Apartheid, Religious Pluralism, and the Evolution of the Right to Religious Freedom in South Africa

The apartheid history of South Africa contains racial and religious discrimination, both running parallel to and supporting each other. South Africa's exodus from a society of forced religious homogeneity to one of celebrating religious pluralism adds valuable and unique patterns of thought to the promotion of religious pluralism and religious freedom. A brief history is presented of religion within the context of racial discrimination and eventual democracy in South Africa. The current plural religious demography of South Africa is presented to create a sense of the extent of diversity in the country and the extent of religious pluralism that should be considered for today. This demographical position necessitates an investigation into the current legal position on dealing with such a religiously plural state as well as the challenges it presents. This is also necessary in order to present the evolution of religious pluralism in an oppressive state to the right to religious freedom in democratic South Africa. This evolution can also serve as an example internationally to countries struggling with the issue of religious pluralism. The article is also of importance to sensitise South Africa to existing and escalating challenges against religious pluralism within the country.

Investigating the relationship between self-rated health and social capital in South Africa: a multilevel panel data analysis.

BackgroundThe relationship between social capital and self-rated health has been documented in many developed compared to developing countries. Because social capital and health play important roles in development, it may be valuable to study their relationship in the context of a developing country with poorer health status. Further, the role of social capital research for health policy has not received much attention. This paper therefore examines the relationship between social capital and health in South Africa, a country with the history of colonialism and apartheid that has contributed to the social disintegration and destruction of social capital.MethodsThis study uses data from the National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS), the first nationally representative panel study in South Africa. Two waves of the NIDS were used in this paper – Wave 1 (2008) and Wave 2 (2010). Self-rated health, social capital (individual- and contextual-level), and other covariates related to the social determinants of health (SDH) were obtained from the NIDS. Individual-level social capital included group participation, personalised trust and generalised trust while contextual-level or neighbourhood-level social capital was obtained by aggregating from the individual-level and household-level social capital variables to the neighbourhood. Mixed effects models were fitted to predict self-rated health in Wave 2, using lagged covariates (from Wave 1).ResultsIndividual personalised trust, individual community service group membership and neighbourhood personalised trust were beneficial to self-rated health. Reciprocity, associational activity and other types of group memberships were not found to be significantly associated with self-rated health in South Africa. Results indicate that both individual- and contextual-level social capital are associated with self-rated health.ConclusionPolicy makers may want to consider policies that impact socioeconomic conditions as well as social capital. Some of these policies are linked to the SDH. We contend that the significant social capital including community service membership can be encouraged through policy in a way that is in line with the values of the people. This is likely to impact on health and quality of life generally and lead to a reduction in the burden of disease in South Africa considering the historic context of the country.

Repetition or Retrieval and Transformation? Derek Hook’s (Post)Apartheid Conditions – Psychoanalysis and Social Formation

In (Post)Apartheid Conditions (2013) – the title of which turns out to be richly ambiguous – psychoanalytical theorist Derek Hook, of Birkbeck College, University of London, addresses what might be called the temporal kernel of the question concerning psycho-social change. Not surprisingly, this is predicated on the enduring possibility of the pathological repetition of past social and political formations that have given rise to endemic suffering and/or violence in concrete terms. Not that Hook’s argument proceeds from the contemplation of possibility alone; on the contrary, his point of departure is located in the sphere of actuality, manifested very concretely in the recent eruption of xenophobia in South Africa, as well as what must henceforth stand as the paradigm of post-apartheid events that chillingly resembles certain happenings under apartheid conditions, namely the Marikana massacre of August 2012. Alluding to these events constitutes what Hook calls historical contextualization which, he emphatically points out, is not sufficient to come to grips with the resurgence of phenomena that appear to be pathological repetitions of socio-political aberrations (such as apartheid) and the violence it gave rise to. His determination to probe deeper into the very structure of the psychic temporalities that underlie such historical events is what drives his argument in this book. In order to understand Hook’s project, it is important to note that he starts with a reference to the outbreak of xenophobic violence in South Africa in May 2008, which elicited the question from many commentators about how such violence, reminiscent of the worst township brutality during apartheid, could occur in a ‘post-reconciliation’ nation (p. 1). Their emphasis, in other words, was on the temporal dimension, on ‘when’ this happened, namely 15 years after the demise of apartheid. Small wonder that the language used to phrase these comments is one of ‘temporal dislocation’ – reminding one of Hamlet’s remark that ‘the time is out of joint’ – with the use of terms such as ‘reversion’, or a ‘failure’ to rid oneself of apartheid history. Some also alluded to the likelihood that one might ‘anticipate’ more such disruptive events in the future. The Marikana massacre, referred to earlier, therefore seemed to confirm these expectations and, simultaneously, to add a reminder that the historical legacy of apartheid was indeed generating more complex effects than anticipated.

On the Edge of Scrutinizing and Reproducing Urban Imaginations of Johannesburg

In her latest book, Loren Kruger reconsiders visual and literary representations of the city of Johannesburg throughout its history. Her approach is a decidedly historical one, in contravention to the tendency of current literature about Johannesburg to emphasize its contemporary exclusiveness and ignore how it had been represented similarly for more than a century. Numerous books on the city of Johannesburg have been published during the 130 years since its foundation, covering the great narrative of the modern city in Africa to the world-class African post-apartheid city promoted by the current municipality. Recent books such as Lindsay Bremner’s Writing the City into Being. Essays on Johannesburg (2010) or Achille Mbembe and Sarah Nuttall’s special issue of Public Culture titled Johannesburg: The Elusive Metropolis (2004) have been crucial post-apartheid attempts at understanding transitional Johannesburg on the backdrop of both its apartheid history and legacy and the contingencies and particularities evolving with its transition under the young democracy.

The singularity of the post-apartheid black condition

Informed by Césaire's awareness on the singularity of the black situation as well as Biko's sense of the consequence of black-conscious solidarity for overcoming white racism, I present some notes concerning social cohesion. I counsel against social cohesion without socio-economic justice. I would like us to consider how we might radically rework what I see as the sentiment urging the discourse of social cohesion into socially-just solidarity in relation to the peculiarity of the black condition. I argue that even if social cohesion is considered a preeminentsocial ideal, it remains an empty signifier if not preceded by policies and programmes to overcome persisting socio-economic inequalities, especially because of the history and contemporary facts of colonial, apartheid and neo-apartheid injustices. I contend that projects intended to foster cohesion might do best if they are prefigured by a radical politics of socio-economic justice. In turn, a politics of social justice needs grounding in an understanding of our unique situatedness as a historically and currently unjust society.

Fit for purpose

News headlines today scream of abuse, violence, intolerance, inequality, and moral bankruptcy. In South Africa, our violent history of apartheid and post-apartheid strife – including the recent xenophobic attacks that have gripped KwaZulu-Natal – highlight issues of physical and emotional anguish, fractured and displaced families, acting out around difference, and economic suffering that not only inform the backdrop to, but are also very palpable within the psychoanalytic space. Emerging from this turbulent context Psychodynamic psychotherapy in South Africa questions the usefulness of psychoanalytically orientated theory and practice in post-apartheid South Africa.

The South African Student Exchange Program: Anti-Apartheid Activism in the Era of Constructive Engagement

After the Soweto Uprising and the murder of Steve Biko, activists in South Africa and the United States created the South African Education Program (SAEP) in 1979 to bring black South African students to the US for university education to prepare them for leadership in post-apartheid South Africa, bringing over 1,500 students by 1995. Some of these students were activists in South Africa; others encountered the liberation movements for the first time at the orientation in the US. Many of them contributed, along with other South Africans, to the divestment movement on US campuses. SAEP students also gained intellectual confidence from their US studies, with alumni now playing prominent roles in transforming post-apartheid South African society. While this program did not directly contradict the Reagan policy of Constructive Engagement with apartheid South Africa, it enabled personal liberation and activism that contributed to ending apartheid. The SAEP provided a space for American universities to contribute to South Africa’s democratic future and nurtured young black South Africans in the history of apartheid and the struggle against it and provided them with language to speak truth to power.

Distance decay and persistent health care disparities in South Africa.

BackgroundAccess to health care is a particular concern given the important role of poor access in perpetuating poverty and inequality. South Africa’s apartheid history leaves large racial disparities in access despite post-apartheid health policy to increase the number of health facilities, even in remote rural areas. However, even when health services are provided free of charge, monetary and time costs of travel to a local clinic may pose a significant barrier for vulnerable segments of the population, leading to overall poorer health.MethodsUsing newly available health care utilization data from the first nationally representative panel survey in South Africa, together with administrative geographic data from the Department of Health, we use graphical and multivariate regression analysis to investigate the role of distance to the nearest facility on the likelihood of having a health consultation or an attended birth.ResultsNinety percent of South Africans live within 7 km of the nearest public clinic, and two-thirds live less than 2 km away. However, 14% of Black African adults live more than 5 km from the nearest facility, compared to only 4% of Whites, and they are 16 percentage points less likely to report a recent health consultation (p < 0.01) and 47 percentage points less likely to use private facilities (p < 0.01). Respondents in the poorest income quintiles live 0.5 to 0.75 km further from the nearest health facility (p < 0.01). Racial differentials in the likelihood of having a health consultation or an attended birth persist even after controlling for confounders.ConclusionsOur results have two policy implications: minimizing the distance that poor South Africans must travel to obtain health care and improving the quality of care provided in poorer areas will reduce inequality. Much has been done to redress disparities in South Africa since the end of apartheid but progress is still needed to achieve equity in health care access.

Marginalized by race and place

Purpose – Given South Africa's apartheid history, studies have primarily focused on racial discrimination in employment outcomes, with lesser attention paid to gender and context. The purpose of this paper is to fill an important gap by examining the combined effect of macro- and micro-level factors on occupational sex segregation in post-apartheid South Africa. Intersections by race are also explored. Design/methodology/approach – A multilevel multinomial logistic regression is used to examine the influence of various supply and demand variables on women's placement in white- and blue-collar male-dominated occupations. Data from the 2001 Census and other published sources are used, with women nested in magisterial districts. Findings – Demand-side results indicate that service sector specialization augments differentiation by increasing women's opportunities in both white-collar male- and female-dominated occupations. Contrary to expectations, urban residence does not influence women's, particularly African women's, placement in any male-type positions, although Whites (white-collar) and Coloureds (blue-collar) fare better. Supply side human capital models are supported in general with African women receiving higher returns from education relative to others, although theories of “maternal incompatibility” are partially disproved. Finally, among all racial groups, African women are least likely to be employed in any male-dominated occupations, highlighting their marginalization and sustained discrimination in the labour market. Practical implications – An analysis of women's placement in white- and blue-collar male-dominated occupations by race provides practical information to design equitable work policies by gender and race. Social implications – Sex-typing of occupations has deleterious consequences such as lower security, wage differentials, and fewer prospects for promotion, that in turn increase labour market rigidity, reduce economic efficiency, and bar women from reaching their full potential. Originality/value – Very few empirical studies have examined occupational sex segregation (using detailed three-digit data) in developing countries, including South Africa. Methodologically, the paper uses multilevel techniques to correctly estimate ways in which context influences individual outcomes. Finally, it contributes to the literature on intersectionality by examining how gender and race sustain systems of inequality.

The globality of the local? A decolonial perspective on local economic development in South Africa

This article employs the decolonial thinking paradigm to dispel the long-held myth that Local Economic Development strategies are universal panacea that can result in the development of all local economies globally. It is opined in this article that the growing literature celebrating the salience of Local Economic Development strategies often downplay how these strategies at times result in the reproduction of economic inequalities. This is primarily so in cities of the Global South which remain weighed down by the burden of colonial and apartheid history. For these repressive systems of governance relegated the colonised to the zones of non-being where opportunities for economic development and self-realisation were deliberately foreclosed. As will be made apparent below, the burden of colonial and apartheid history did not miraculously disappear with the advent of political independence. Instead, the spectre of coloniality – defined as the continuation of economic, socio-spatial and epistemological domination of the hitherto colonised, still looms large. The primary argument advanced here, therefore, is that Local Economic Development strategies implemented in highly socio-spatially fragmented and economically uneven societies can further exacerbate these inequalities. The case of post-apartheid South Africa is used to highlight how Local Economic Development strategies implemented in highly divided societies often reproduce economic and socio-spatial inequalities.