The Dismantling Of The Apartheid War Machine And The Problems Of Conversion Of The Military Industrial Complex (original) (raw)
Related papers
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
2024
Does apartheid South Africa point to an emerging paradigm in international relations? Catherine Besteman dares us to raise this provocative question in her book Militarized Global Apartheid. While the question may seem counterintuitive because apartheid was considered a “crime against humanity” by the United Nations General Assembly in 1966, Besteman's arguments rely on a critical view of history, inspired especially by Cedric Robinson, that is far from a redemptive “narrative” of liberation from oppression.
The End Conscription Campaign in South Africa: War Resistance in a Divided Society
History Compass, 2011
The End Conscription Campaign was a war resistance movement in South Africa between 1984 and 1993. This article examines the strategy behind this unique movement, and explores its relationship to the South African liberation struggle and the anti-apartheid movement. The militarisation of South African society and the uprising against apartheid by the black majority, both of which intensified during the decade of the 1980s, created the context within which this movement gained momentum. It is argued that although the End Conscription Campaign was not able to impact upon the military efficiency of the South African Defence Force, it was able to make an important contribution to the liberation struggle through its undermining of the legitimacy of the Defence Force in the eyes of the conscripted population.
Current Anthropology, 2019
New regimes of labor and mobility control are taking shape across the global north in a militarized form that mimics South Africa's history of apartheid. Apartheid was a South African system of influx and labor control that attempted to manage the "threat" posed by black people by incarcerating them in zones of containment while also enabling the control and policed exploitation of black people as workers, on which the country was dependent. The paper argues, first, that the rise of a system of global apartheid has created a racialized world order and a hierarchical labor market dependent on differential access to mobility; second, that the expansion of systems of resource plunder primarily by agents of the global north into the global south renders localities in the global south unsustainable for ordinary life; and, third, that in response, the global north is massively investing in militarized border regimes to manage the northern movement of people from the global south. The paper argues that "global apartheid" might replace terms such as "transnationalism," "multiculturalism," and "cosmopolitanism" in order to name the structures of control that securitize the north and foster violence in the south, that gate the north and imprison the south, and that create a new militarized form of apartheid on a global level. 1. As of this writing, the closure decision has been suspended. 2. This paper is a highly abbreviated version of a book project that develops the arguments, theoretical concepts, and ethnographic examples in much greater detail, including the cases of India, East Asia, and China, which are not discussed here due to space limitations. Furthermore, because the article condenses a broadly comparative and nuanced argument, I am aware that it may appear to reify categories like the "global north" and the "global south." I hope readers will understand that these categories are, of course, internally complex and diverse and that my use of broad-brush tactics here is a heuristic necessity.
BLACK MEN IN A WHITE MAN'S WAR: THE IMPACT OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR ON SOUTH AFRICAN BLACKS*
1982
The past decade in European and Anglo-American historiography has witnessed a steady growth of literature in what is generally termed 'war and society ' studies. This development is largely a reaction against the 'drum and trumpet1 school of military history; a field of inquiry that may be valid in its own right, but one that often degene-rates into a discussion of uniforms and badges and seldom rises above campaigns and battles- the major weakness being an inclination to divorce the fighting side of war from its socio-economic and political context. Practitioners in the field of 'war and society ' therefore seek to place warfare in its total historical milieu and they share inter alia a common interest in war as an agent of social change.1 In comparison with the position in Britain, America and Europe, the historiography of 'war and society ' in Africa
This article provides an historic–theoretical understanding of civil-military relations in South Africa and an outline of important influences on South African civil-military relations at present. Historically, a well-developed professional officer corps shaped South African civil-military relations. Africa's post-independence history, though, is full of examples indicating that neglect of the military often translates into domestic risk and a dwindling of military professionalism. Post-apartheid South Africa seems to emulate this example. The South African military may be in the barracks at present. However, there are clear indications that, in the longer term, the military risks promotion of elite interests, patronage and uncompetitive practices rooted in a single political party. This tendency is rooted in a general decline of military professionalism due to factors such as a declining defence budget, obsolete military technologies, a diminishing role of Parliament in overseeing the military function, the nature of operations and institutional factors such as a distorted professional self-image of military personnel.
New Voices in Psychology, 2013
It was a cold 4th of July morning when I drove into the small city of Grahamstown. Welcomed by the descending drizzle, I started looking for the conference venue. Street corners and building walls were alive with posters and banners of the Arts festival that was also taking place during that week. This is one of the busiest times of the year for the city of Grahamstown as many people from around the country descend down to enjoy and immerse themselves in the various activities that take place during this time. It was within this week that the first conference on Legacies of Apartheid Wars took place.
Monthly Review, 1978
How should an American socialist make a general assessment of the situation in Southern Africa? The Marxist methodology based on the materialist dialectic tells us that one should begin with an analysis of the internal development of those African peoples engaged in struggle. It is its basic premise that all social phenomena are determined by their intrinsic contradictions. It follows, therefore, that only a concrete analysis of the contradictions within each African nation can provide us with a comprehensive understanding of the competing movements and their potential for organizing a socialist revolution. And this information is essential to any decision to support one of the contending organizations. But it has become an all-too-common practice on the American left to bypass such a rigorous analysis in favor of some instant generalization based upon the current Chinese, Soviet, and Ameri-Leo Casey is a graduate student in political science at the University of Toronto, and works with the Toronto Committee for the Liberation of Southern Africa. He lived in Africa for a year, including an eight-month stay at the University of Dares -Salaam in Tanzania.