Review of Ann Stahl's MAKING HISTORY IN BANDA: ANTHROPOLOGICAL VISIONS OF AFRICA'S PAST (original) (raw)
Related papers
Olufuko revisited: female initiation in contemporary Ombadja, Northern Namibia
2014
This thesis analyses post-independence Namibian Heritage and identity discourse and its contestations through the contemporary public performance of olufuko. Olufuko is the ritual of female initiation that marks the transition of young girls into adulthood. The initiation has been an important aspect of the Aawambo 1 women's identity that live in north-central Namibia and southern Angola as it is believed to legitimise womanhood. I show how Owambo residents embrace regional or ethnic diversity through the performance of olufuko as a way of expressing their belonging. Throughout the thesis, I also reflect on the fact that through national attendance at, participation in, and performing of olufuko by state representatives and individuals, from all the regions of Namibia and beyond, people have expressed their belonging to a nation state. During olufuko ceremonies, both regional and national state representatives advocated the ideas of nation-building through 'unity in diversity', which emphasises the diversity of ethnic backgrounds while harmoniously coexisting. Following Becker (2004), and Becker and Lentz (2013), my central argument is that in the contemporary dispensation, national citizenship in Namibia appears to be defined largely through the emphasis on regional or ethnic diversity. In my discussion, I show how the state appropriated and mediated the olufuko ceremony as a national event, though it was performed at the regional level. I show how national identity was visibly represented by national symbols such as the national flag and anthem and how it was audibly live broadcasted by state television and radio during the event. This signified the event as national. The thesis further investigates how national heritage is discussed in post-colonial Namibia by looking into the controversies between the state and ELCIN religious leaders which emanated from the performance of olufuko. The thesis is based on ethnographic research, which was conducted between December 2012, during olufuko ceremonies that took place in villages in Ombadja, and August 2013, when it culminated in participant observation during the public olufuko ceremony at Outapi, Ombalantu. This thesis came about as result of many people who dedicated their time and contributed their knowledge and experience to the final product. First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Prof. Heike Becker, who devoted her time and energy in guiding me throughout my entire study. She has been my pillar of strength, a mentor and an inspirational supporter from the beginning. I thank her for many illuminating discussions on technical support, her advice, encouragement, and teaching in academic writing, which were indeed valuable all the way. At the same time, I am thankful to the Carl-Schlettwein Foundation for the financial support that it has provided me during my study at the University of the Western Cape. I thank the Namibian Ministry of Youth, National Service Sport and Culture for providing me with this opportunity to study.
2015
Twenty-five years after the inauguration of the first President of an independent Namibia, we at the Journal of Namibian Studies thought it was time to pause, take stock and look ahead. Of course, we were not the only ones. Throughout the year, celebrations and impassioned speeches have marked the anniversary. Indeed, praise is merited. Namibia has experienced a quarter century of peace and equality, and the country continues to stand as one of the continent’s most successful democracies. The list of accomplishments has been impressive, not least the number of new schools, hospitals and health clinics that have brought essential services to almost the entire population. But despite Namibia’s remarkable achievements, not all is perfect in the “Land God Made in Anger”, and many segments of society feel that there is not so much to cheer about. Young people, many of whom were born and educated in a free and independent Namibia, struggle to find employment and see few opportunities to fulfil their own dreams; the urban middle class is being priced out of the real estate market; the rural poor still find themselves without access to commercial farmland; and many people, from all walks of life, lament what they perceive as corruption among the country’s ruling elite. So amidst all the congratulations and praise we believe that a more critical and balanced reflection on 25 years of independence is appropriate, while at the same time not wishing to belittle the real and praiseworthy progress. It is not our intention to put Namibia’s ruling elites on trial – that would do Namibia and its citizens no justice, nor would it adequately acknowledge the debt all Namibians owe to the country’s founding mothers and fathers, and to its ancestors. Instead, we have opted to present a kaleidoscopic snapshot of Namibian society today. It was never our objective to cover all aspects or to provide a satellite view of the country, but only to represent a number of different, even competing, interpretations of recent history. In order to do so, we asked experts from both academia and civil society, from within and outside the country, to offer their take on “Namibia at 25”, with special attention to their respective fields of expertise.
Encountering post-colonial realities in Namibia
Encountering post-colonial realities in Namibia, 2020
This article offers an overview of the research undertaken in Namibia in 2019 by a group of emerging academics studying at Hamburg Germany to shape the core of this volume. We aim to tackle the challenging question of the speaker position within a field of discourse around post-colonialism from which our group can legitimately speak, and sketch the necessities for and challenges facing a decolonization of language, action and research. It is impossible with a small – though sensitive and ambitious – group of upcoming anthropologists to do more than scratch the surface of a problem that is so big and multidimensional. So, in this volume we present partial glimpses of our encounter with post-colonial realities in Namibia, and do not claim to be able to paint more than a rough picture. Here we have chosen to present our projects within a broader description of the current Namibian condition including aspects of history, sociality, politics, economics and ecology, religion, gender, iden...
2004
This article concentrates on the ambiguities and contradictions in the colonial archive on North West Namibia (a region also known as Kaokoland), and on the way these were exploited by the “stubborn traditionalists” inhabiting it. Its aim is to place the emergence of postcolonial identities and subjectivities in the region in an historical perspective. To do so, it takes a look at the depoliticized discourse on livestock and development in which South West African rule framed its politics of identity. This case study investigates how precisely this discourse fuelled political resistance in the region. However, the efforts by elders and so‐called commoners to counter indirect rule and apartheid hardly ever took the form of overt rebellion or explicit political protest. It concerned instead a more subtle and defiant form of counterworks, a very specific local modernity rooted in local subjectivity and experience that happened to be quite efficient.
South African Historical Journal, 2013
is a chapter on national organisation of civics by Jeremy Seekings, one on faith based resistance by Siphamandla Zondi, and also chapters on the Christian Institute, visual artists, the rise and fall of constructive engagement, and liberal opposition to apartheid. Continuing work of the previous volume, Bhekizizwe Peterson raises evocative questions in his chapter on the arts. Zine Magubane provides the first entry into the question of gender in the series. It is not a historical contribution but challenges paradigms that may be dominant in academia, that posit feminism as being incompatible with national liberation. Important as this input is, it does not sit comfortably with the overall conception of the series, which has sought to provide historical accounts of various elements of resistance history, with occasional reference to the role of women. The previous gaps mean that the intervention is not grounded in the SADET history as a whole, but also as a theoretical intervention it is buried within a series, where it will not be easily accessed by those who would challenge or debate its arguments. My impression is that the SADET volumes have been underrated. Considered as a whole they comprise a comprehensive account of the post 1960 period of resistance. Other scholars will draw on this work, as with Gerhart and Glaser, for years to come.
Last Steps to Uhuru: An Eye-Witness Account of Namibia's Transition to Independence
The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 1994
In August 1985, the first edition of the paper hit the streets, and quickly established itself amongst the black community, who at last had a medium sympathetic to their views and aspirations. But in so doing, The Namibian angered the authorities, and the latter set out to silence the paper and its staff: phones were tapped; post intercepted; staff were harrassed, beaten and sometimes jailed; and the paper's offices were the target of teargas and sniper attacks. However, all this only strengthened the staff's resolve to continue with their task of highlighting the abuses of the colonial regime-in particular the atrocities committed by the South African security forces in the war zone-and thus provide the other side to the Namibian story, a side largely ignored by the Namibian media, not to mention the rest of the world. By the time I left for Namibia in February 1988, life for the majority of Namibians had steadily deteriorated since the British and Germans, in the name of civilisation, first took an interest in Namibia more than a centruy beforehand. Of the small population of 1.5 million people, six per cent were white, 94 per cent were black. Seventy per cent of the black population lived in the countryside, and yet 77 per cent of fertile farming land was taken up by white-owned farms. Almost all those black people not working on the land worked as migrant labourers in the mines, factories and homes of white people, many hundreds of kilometres away from their families whom they would seldom see more than once a year. thorn bushveld was the so-called "coloured" township of Khomasdal. Although Khomasdal was also separated from the main city of Windhoek, housing here was on the whole, of better quality than in Katutura, a sign of the higher social status afforded by the whites to this half-caste community. While black people were generally assigned menial manual work, people of mixed race tended to start higher up the job ladder and dominated the ranks of clerks and low-grade civil servants, the better pay-although still meagre compared with the incomes of white people-allowing them to consolidate their higher class status. Afrikaans was the language of Khomasdal. Here the older municipality houses were of a similar design to the more recently built Katutura homes, and included running water, electricity and indoor toilets. The modern districts of Khomasdal, those furthest from Katutura, were made up of many fine, big, privately owned houses which rivalled many homes found in the more posh suburbs of White City Windhoek a few kilometres away. Even after the repeal of the Group Areas Act, Khomasdal and Katutura remained distinctly separate places, despite the fact that, with the expansion of both townships, in places only 100 metres of veld separated the two. More recently, a handful of Khomasdal people had taken advantage of cheaper Katutura land prices and crossed the divide to build or buy themselves better homes than they could have afforded in up-market Khomasdal. Some of the more radical Khomasdalers had also moved to Katutura to escape the political apathy which reigned in Khomasdal, while a few others had been unable to afford the higher rents of Khomasdal. But as a rule, most Khomasdalers tended to look down on Katuturans and clung to their perceived superiority. It was not uncommon for Khomasdalers to refer to their black brothers and sisters as "kaffirs", and many complained of the "unclean" and "lazy" lifestyles of the latter. Taxis, the most common form of transport in both townships, did not travel the short distance between the two townships except when the drivers were lured by a fare five times the standard R1 charge. In fact it was cheaper to pay a Rand for a Katutura taxi to take you the 5km into the city and then another R1 for the 4km journey out to Khomasdal, than it was to Contents Preface vii Maps ix 11 Boerestroika and Uhuru 262 12 Two women 286 13 Welcome to Namibia 303 Glossary 337 Index 340 Last Steps to Uhuru 10 persuade reluctant drivers to ferry you across the short divide between the two townships. John, Da'oud and I had gone to Katutura to investigate a tip-off from a student activist that a security force agent was trying to recruit spies from the ranks of the progressive student union Nanso. The activist had arranged to meet the agent in the township and we were going to photograph the rendezvous. We drew up outside a house in an old location backstreet and climbed out of the car. My mind was still reeling from all I had seen in my guided tour of the townships, and before I knew it, John and Da'oud had darted off, leaving me standing in the front yard of the house of a total stranger. For fear of ruining my colleague's stake-out, I stayed put, scanning the rows of township houses around me. The extent of the poverty was beginning to sink in; I had seen similar scenes on television and in books and magazines, but the first-hand reality had still come as a huge shock. I noticed that the street had gone unusually quiet. A radio played inside the house, but no one stirred. I was sure children had been scampering in and out of the nearby riverbed when we arrived, but now they had vanished. An ancient Ford pickup truck limped down the street. As it neared, it suddenly accelerated, the two occupants giving me a furtive sideways glance as they shot past me and disappeared in a cloud of dust. John raced around the comer of the house with Da'oud ambling along a few metres behind. "Let's go man!" John hissed as he leapt into the car. I fumbled with the door handle and fell into the back seat just as the car began to pull away. The mission had been successful, John informed me as he wound on the film in his camera and removed the finished spool while steering the car with his knees. His eyes darted left and right, and then ahead as he mumbled excitedly about the pictures he had taken. Da'oud sat in the front passenger seat, laughing at John's crazy account, lolling against the door with his left arm hanging out Of the open window, casually playing with the wing mirror and giving the occasional nonchalant wave to passers by. My two colleagues could not have been more opposite in character. John was hyperactive, always on the move, his train of thought continually changing which resulted in him never finishing sentences, let alone a topic of conversation. With his straggly brown hair, a matted, unkempt beard and manic blue eyes, he looked like the archetypal news photographer who stopped at nothing to get the photograph he wanted. Da'oud on the other hand always tried to play it cool, although his fiery temper sometimes got the better of him. There was but a few months Welcome to Suidwes 11 difference in our ages and, at 23, we were the youngsters of the newsroom. University educated in Cape Town, Da'oud was full of theory and radical ideals, although he too possessed a reckless streak. We pulled up at a crossroads and into the car jumped the student activist who had just met with the spy recruiter. A look of panic shot across his face as he slumped into the back seat and saw me sitting there next to him. He said something to Da'oud in quick-fire, staccato Nama clicks, and the latter let out a hearty laugh, causing ash from his cigarette to fall onto his neatly pressed jeans. "He thinks you are the police!" Da'oud told me, before explaining to the student who I was. "I think you had better do something about your haircut pretty soon," Da'oud then told me. I turned to the student and smiled apologetically and he replied with a still slightly disbelieving grin. He then returned to John and Da'oud and began to tell them-in Afrikaans-what had happened during the rendezvous. The agent had indeed tried to persuade the student to spy on his Nanso colleagues in return for a handsome monthly allowance which would have paid for his education, new clothes and more besides. Although he had no intention of betraying his comrades, the student had left the agent hanging in the air, saying he needed more time to think about the proposal. "I think he will withdraw the offer once he sees these pictures in the paper," John said sarcastically, patting the spool of film in his shirt pocket, and he and Da'oud roared with laughter. We were soonback onto the tar road and heading towards town. Once on the highway, I noticed groups of young black men sitting or standing at street corners and looking hopefully at passing cars, while others sheltered in the minuscule shade offered by nearby thorn bushes or road signs. This was a daily ritual for hundreds of unemployed black people throughout the capital who hoped to pick up casual work from white "baases" who trawled the pickup spots in their four-wheel-drive "bakkies" every time they were short of labourers. With the large pool of unemployed labour, wages paid to these casual workers were usually even more of a pittance than those paid to full-time labourers, and employment never involved a contract, so the same despondent faces were soon back at the same street corner once they had served their purpose. After the township, the ordered, clean, tarred streets, luxury cars, posh shops, modern buildings and overall affluence of the city centre seemed surreal. But the cosseted opulence in which white Windhoekers cocooned themselves at home in their exclusive suburbs was even more mind-blowing.