Mbongiseni Buthelezi | University of the Witwatersrand (original) (raw)

Papers by Mbongiseni Buthelezi

Wits University Press eBooks, Jun 1, 2023

Archives of Times Past, 2022

Traditional Leaders in a Democracy, 2019

The present investigation is to assess the antiulcer activity by utilizing natural remedy Lagenar... more The present investigation is to assess the antiulcer activity by utilizing natural remedy Lagenaria siceraria. The chloroform extract of Lagenaria siceraria treated groups demonstrates a huge impact when related to controller group animals. The acute toxicity study for chloroform extract of Lagenaria siceraria indicates that, it is harmless till 400 mg/kg body weight. The chloroform extract of Lagenaria siceraria at 250 mg/ kg dose has shown mucosal erosion, the partial healing of ulcer with few inflammatory cells and the dose 400 mg/kg has shown healing ulcer, mucosa and no inflammation of cells. Lagenaria siceraria extracts reported to own antioxidant activity and to contain various types of compounds such as flavonoids, saponins and tannins. The gastro protective effect exhibited by chloroform extract Lagenaria siceraria is speculated to be recognized for its antioxidant property, which in turn could be linked to existence of flavonoids and polyphenolic compounds, saponins and tannins. These compounds most likely inhibit gastric mucosal injury. The chloroform extract of Lagenaria siceraria treated groups illustrate a major effect when related to control group animals which shows that the plant containing antiulcer action.

South African Journal on Human Rights, 2014

In February 2014, following years of resistance, the Traditional Courts Bill (TCB), was allowed t... more In February 2014, following years of resistance, the Traditional Courts Bill (TCB), was allowed to lapse in Parliament. This followed intense opposition by citizens in rural areas, the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), the Department of Women, Children and People with Disabilities (DWCPD) and other institutions in the public consultations held by Parliament on the Bill. Despite significant structural and procedural obstacles to participation in these consultations, including the fact that the state assisted only traditional leaders to attend public hearings, many people in rural areas gave eloquent inputs on the Bill. Even though the official word is that the Bill simply lapsed, this is a direct consequence of this national resistance. It is a victory for the thousands of people who opposed the Bill, for the millions of people who will not be forced to live under the separate legal system that the Bill had proposed, and for South Africa's democratic structures which...

The Politics of Heritage in Africa

Journal of Southern African Studies, 2014

The Cambridge History of South African Literature

Choice Reviews Online, 2010

Combining classic essays with little-known pieces from across the centuries and around the world ... more Combining classic essays with little-known pieces from across the centuries and around the world whose take on comparative literary study is especially pertinent to debates today, The Princeton Sourcebook in Comparative Literature will be an indispensable resource for debates about how to conceive of literary studies today and in the future, and a salutary reminder that for comparatists the questions posed by globalization have always been on the table."-Jonathan Culler, past president of the American Comparative Literature Association "This is an excellent anthology of the main texts that define the field of comparative literature. These pieces show how the discipline has been organized in the past and where it is going in an age of increased globalization. The excellent introductions are concise, clear, and well written. This is a book that all students of comparative literature will want to read.

In this dissertation, I argue that there is a pressing need in post-apartheid KwaZulu-Natal to re... more In this dissertation, I argue that there is a pressing need in post-apartheid KwaZulu-Natal to reassess the eighteenth-and nineteenth-century histories of the region from the perspectives of people whose ancestry was dispossessed and/or displaced in the wars that took place in that period, particularly those that elevated Shaka to dominance. I suggest that because of their retrospective manipulation by the vested interests of power politics, historical processes over the past two centuries, and in the last century in particular, have invested the figure of King Shaka and 'Zulu' ethnic identities with unitary meanings that have made them close to inescapable for most people who are considered 'Zulu'. I argue that there is, therefore, a need to recuperate the histories of the clans which were defeated by the Zulu and welded into the Zulu 'nation'. Following British-Jamaican novelist Caryl Phillips' strategy, I begin to conduct this recuperation through a process of subverting history by writing back into historical records people and events that have been written and spoken out of them. I argue that literary texts, izibongo ('personal' praises) and izithakazelo (clan praises) in this case, offer a useful starting point in recovering the suppressed or marginalised histories of some of the once-significant clans in the region. In the three chapters of this dissertation, I examine the izibongo of three late eighteenth-/early nineteenth-century amakhosi (kings) in the present KwaZulu-Natal region, Shaka kaSenzangakhona of the Zulu clan, Phungashe kaNgwane of the Buthelezi and Zwide kaLanga of the Ndwandwe. In the first chapter, I read Shaka's izibongo as an instance of empire-building discourse in which I trace the belittling representations granted Phungashe and Zwide. In the second and third chapters, I set Phungashe's and Zwide's izibongo, respectively, as well as the histories carried in and alluded to by these texts, and the clans' izithakazelo, alongside Shaka's and examine the extent to which the two amakhosi's izibongo talk back to Shaka's imperialism. I also follow the later histories of the two amakhosi's clans to determine which individuals became prominent in the Zulu kingdom under Shaka and after, as well as point to the revisions of the past that are being conducted in the present by people of the two clans. The versions of the izibongo I study and the hypotheses of history I present are drawn from sources that include the James Stuart Archive, A.T. Bryant, and oral historical accounts from several people I interviewed. Given the present imperatives in South Africa of bringing justice to the various peoples who were dispossessed under colonial and apartheid domination, I argue that recuperating the histories of the clans that were conquered by the Zulu under Shaka's leadership problematises questions of justice in KwaZulu-Natal: if it is legitimate to claim reparation for colonialism and apartheid, then the Zulu kingdom should be viewed under the same spotlight because of the similar suffering it visited on many inhabitants of the region. In that way, we can transcend divisive colonial, apartheid and Zulu nationalist histories that continue to have strong, often negative, effects on the crossing of identity boundaries constructed under those systems of domination.

SA crime quarterly, Sep 1, 2014

Accessing land and capital in rural South Africa-new forms of old power An immense irony characte... more Accessing land and capital in rural South Africa-new forms of old power An immense irony characterises the scramble for land in democratic South Africa. Some of the ethnic homeland areas to which people were confined by colonial and apartheid segregationist laws and policies have become extremely valuable real estate since the discovery of platinum and other minerals beneath the land. As Sonwabile Mnwana explains in his article in this issue, the mining economy has progressively shifted to these areas over the past 20 years, often with devastating consequences and few benefits for the groups whose historical lands are now being mined. A series of overlapping developments since the transition to democracy 20 years ago has left people in rural South Africa, especially in the platinum mining areas of the North West and Limpopo provinces, squeezed ever more tightly between the state, mining companies and unaccountable chiefs (or, in state parlance, traditional leaders). Communities affected by mining find themselves caught up in the contradictions and tensions generated by different visions and agendas for reshaping the democratic state. New relationships between the state, capital and labour aim to transform the economy to include black South Africans who lost land and power with the arrival of white settlers 350 years ago. In addition, the place and status of customary forms of leadership, authority and decision-making within the democratic state have to be redefined. Under apartheid, customary structures played the role of local government in homeland areas such as Bophuthatswana, but in the extensively negotiated 1996 Constitution they received only recognition, with no clearly defined roles, functions or resources. This has not stopped many chiefs from exerting their authority over

SA crime quarterly, 2014

An immense irony characterises the scramble for land in democratic South Africa. Some of the ethn... more An immense irony characterises the scramble for land in democratic South Africa. Some of the ethnic homeland areas to which people were confined by colonial and apartheid segregationist laws and policies have become extremely valuable real estate since the discovery of platinum and other minerals beneath the land. As Sonwabile Mnwana explains in his article in this issue, the mining economy has progressively shifted to these areas over the past 20 years, often with devastating consequences and few benefits for the groups whose historical lands are now being mined.

The European Legacy, 2013

We describe a model of matchmaking suitable for the implementation of services, rather than their... more We describe a model of matchmaking suitable for the implementation of services, rather than their for their discovery and composition. In the model, processing requirements are modelled by client requests and computational resources are software processors that compete for request processing as the covariant implementations of an open service interface. Matchmaking then relies on type analysis to rank processors against requests in support of a wide range of dispatch strategies. We relate the model to the autonomicity of service provision and briefly report on its deployment within a production-level infrastructure for scientific computing.

South African Historical Journal