South African history Research Papers (original) (raw)

Most quarters of the Allied camp greeted the fall of Tobruk on 21 June 1942 with incredulity. The epitome of a heroic defence conducted the year before had now deteriorated into a military debacle, resulting in thousands of Allied soldiers sent ‘into the bag’. The enormity of the defeat, at first greeted in muted fashion by a stunned press, soon turned into outrage at yet another Allied military fiasco. The British and South African papers began to demand answers from politicians and military leaders for this shocking and unexpected catastrophe. The press, normally sensitive to maintaining positive home front morale, discarded their wartime cosseting approach and embarked on a quest to find a scapegoat. Those captured at Tobruk were equally outraged that their freedom had been traded cheaply with hardly a fight. To many of these prisoners of war, the blame for their ignominious surrender rested squarely with the fortress commander, Major General HB Klopper. It was of little consequence to those now languishing behind the wire that the reasons for defeat were much more intricate and went beyond the performance of one man. This article examines a selection of representative press reports in the weeks immediately preceding and following the rout, and the oral reminiscences of former prisoners-of-war taken at Tobruk, which together, have contributed towards an enduring memory of the so-called Tobruk ‘debacle’.

- by and +1
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- History, Military History, Military Science, Strategy (Military Science)

Sidi Rezegh and Tobruk are the largest disasters suffered by South Africa in its military history. Yet, despite their enormity, Sidi Rezegh and Tobruk are little understood and hardly remembered. South Africa declared war on Germany on the 6 September 1939, after a bitter internal debate, amounting to a conflict between Afrikaner nationalists and those who supported the British Empire. South Africa’s political ambivalence and disunity ran parallel to her unpreparedness for war in every important department from the lack of vital coastal defences to the miniscule size of her army and air force and complete lack of a navy. The first six months of 1941 saw the South Africans play a significant part in completely defeating the Italian colonial forces in East Africa. However, the campaign was poor preparation for what the South Africans were to encounter in the North African Desert months later. South African troops spent their time rebuilding fortifications in Egypt rather than in essential training to acclimatise this “bush war” army to harsh desert conditions. In a reluctant political decision, the unprepared South Africans were committed to Operation Crusader. The inexperienced South Africans met up with the battle hardened Afrika Korps at Sidi Rezegh on 23 November 1941 and were annihilated in the face of overwhelming odds. In revisiting this forgotten battle, it has been found, using primary and secondary sources, that the South Africans extracted an enormous price on the German armour in what may have been the true turning point of Operation Crusader. In May 1942, Rommel’s Afrika Korps sallied forth in a series of lightning moves that demonstrated the Axis grip on combined operations and managed to isolate the vital port of Tobruk commanded by an inexperienced South African, Major General H. B. Klopper. His surrender in one day is often compared to the previous siege endured under similar circumstances, where the Australians managed to hold Rommel at bay for 244 days until the siege was lifted. Klopper’s surrender of Tobruk resulted in a political crisis for Winston Churchill and for Jan Smuts, as the fiasco caused considerable tension within the Allied camp and within South Africa. On re-examination, interesting facts have emerged from the primary source material, as to the state of the Tobruk defences and of its unfortunate commander and how the United Kingdom, acting in concert with South Africa, sought to suppress the true facts. Immediate post-war memory has been shaped and distorted by sensitive political considerations that affected relations between South Africa and the United Kingdom. Thereafter, the memory of Sidi Rezegh and Tobruk was relegated first by a nationalistic Afrikaner government and then since by a democratically elected government, both of which have seen very little use in incorporating these two milestones into the national memory.

- by David Brock Katz
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- History, Military History, Military Science, Doctrine (Military Science)

After a brief chapter on early efforts at non-racial union organization and the labour upsurge of the 197Os, Baskin concentrates on the complex unity negotiations among the various unions involved in the formation of COSATU in November... more

This is a detailed review of my best-selling book Drinking with Ghosts: The Aftermath of Apartheid's Dirty War (BestRed, South Africa, 2014) by Dr Iain Edwards in the South African Journal of Science, May-June 2015. The book was long-listed for the 2015 Alan Paton Award, and long-listed for the Academy of Science of South Africa’s 2016 Humanities Book Award.

- by Michael Schmidt
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- Military History, African Studies, Nuclear Weapons, Africa

Reactionary nationalist groups are the natural result of a system that has failed to address racial faultlines.

The article analyses various cases of captivity in a region comprised within modern-day South Africa and Lesotho in the late precolonial period. Focusing on a single social institution, bohlanka, the article follows its traces scattered among the Batlhaping, the Basotho, the Barolong, the Bataung, and other smaller precolonial communities. Generally considered by scholars as a form of clientship based on cattle-loans, bohlanka is here redefined as originating from warfare and captivity, and later expanding to include the destitute. The fundamental elements of the institution-violence, natal alienation, and suspended death-lead to the conclusion that bohlanka constituted a local form of slavery that pre-dated colonial influences.

- by Ettore Morelli
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- History, African History, History of Slavery, Lesotho

This is an article by journalist David Oliveira, in the South African industry periodical "Mining Weekly" vol 22, no. 15 ( 22 April 2016), pp. 10-11. It is mostly based on Oliveira's attendance at a seminay I gave at the Department of Anthropology, U of the Witwatersrand, 10 March 2016. It highlights several points that I made: "Artisanal and small-scale miners have no legal recourse". "Artisanal miners can recover more gold for every tone mined becasue they select and remove only the best gold-bearing ore". "The significant number of mining and metallurgical tools found in Zimbabwe is evidence of societies with a sophisticated knowledge and technology base that was not solely focused on cattle herding and agriculture". "Thornton says new models of settlement, migration, trade and economics for the precolonial period, as well as for investigating how metals were used and integrated into South African societies and cultures, must be developed to determine the scale and sophistication of these ancient societies."

- by Tinashe Nyamunda
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- South African history

How did prehistoric peoples those living before written records think? Were their modes of thought fundamentally different from ours today? Researchers over the years have certainly believed so. Along with the Aborigines of Australia, the indigenous San people of southern Africa among the last hunter-gatherer societies on Earth became iconic representatives of all our distant ancestors, and were viewed either as irrational fantasists or childlike, highly spiritual conservationists. Since the 1960s, a new wave of research among the San and their world-famous rock art has overturned these misconceived ideas. Here, the great authority David Lewis-Williams and his colleague Sam Challis reveal how analysis of the rock paintings and engravings can be made to yield vital insights into San beliefs and ways of thought. The picture that emerges is very different from past analysis: this art is not a naïve narrative of daily life but rather is imbued with power and religious depth. As this elegantly written, enlightening book so ably demonstrates, the prehistoric mind was in fact as complex and sophisticated as that of contemporary humans.

- by David Lewis-Williams and +1
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- Archaeology, Art History, Rock Art (Archaeology), South African history

Despite the emphasis on materialism prompting many debates about the growth of the gold industry and the outbreak of the South African War in 1899, little research has focused on the nancial institutions of South Africa’s early gold industry. The growth of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) is woven interchangeably with that of Witwatersrand’s gold industry. This article investigates why and how the Exchange came into existence, and its early interaction with southern Africa’s gold-mining revolution. Using original documentation from the JSE and its landlord, the Johannesburg Estate Company, the article juxtaposes accounts of the London Stock Exchange, with South African nancial developments in the last quarter of the 19th century. It describes the intentional deregulation of stock exchange listing requirements that led to the establishment of the JSE. In addition, the article outlines the JSE’s organisational developments by quantifying and qualifying trends in membership numbers up until the end of the rst ‘Golden Boom’ of 1890. The early institutional growth of the Exchange can be seen as a balancing of organisational power between the Exchange’s landowner, Barney Barnato’s Johannesburg Estate Company, and JSE members.

A obra de Pablo de Rezende Saturnino Braga, intitulada A rede de ativismo transnacional contra o apartheid na África do Sul, representa um estudo valioso e oportuno. Ela retoma a história do regime racista e analisa a rede de atores transnacionais que se levantou contra a forma explícita mais obscurantista de discriminação desde a derrota do nazismo, demonstrando com clareza quem era quem nos anos do apartheid. Isto porque hoje, da África do Sul à Europa, a xenofobia e a doutrina da superioridade racial estão de volta, com o rosto descoberto. Professor Paulo Visentini

This book is the first of a kind in that it covers South Africa's war in East and North Africa in a single volume. However, it is by no means a complete history. Some events, especially those which involve the South Africans, are dealt with in detail, while other facets of the desert war receive less attention. The Union Defence Force in the Second World War made tremendous sacrifices, all but forgotten in South Africa and Britain. Britain owes a debt to the South Africans who voluntarily came to her aid during her darkest hours. Modern day South Africans, who enjoy the fruits of a democratic country, should not forget that black and white South Africans soldiers took up arms and fought side by side against fascist tyranny in the hope that a better and freer South Africa would emerge as a result of their sacrifices.

- by David Brock Katz
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- History, Military History, Military Science, Strategy (Military Science)
- by Sarah Bruchhausen
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- Resistance (Social), South African history, Book Reviews, Nelson Mandela
- by Jeroen warner
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- Social Sciences, Qualitative methodology, Security, Water resources

In this German translation done by Franz Martin Wimmer, We engage in a discussion of work we've been engaged in over the past 3 years, we examine the continuity of colonial racism in academic philosophy in South since 1994 and the advent of the "new" South Africa. We do this by comparing the present to the past of philosophical teaching and practice. Our argument is that the marginalisation of African philosophy is correspondent to the elsewhere political and social reality of the marginalisation of the indigenous people conquered in the unjust wars of colonisation. This occurs most tangibly through the outstanding resolution of the restoration of sovereignty over the territory and title over it to the indigenous people.

- by Ndumiso Dladla and +1
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- African Philosophy, Race and Racism, South African Politics and Society, Critical Race Theory
- by Olatoun Gabi-Williams
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- Africa, Apartheid, South African history, South Africa
- by Siegfried Huigen
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- History, Cultural History, Anthropology, Ethnography
- by Alex Myers
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- South Africa (History), Southern Africa, South African history, South Africa

Av: Oskar Aanmoen, bachelorstudent i historie ved Universitet i Oslo. Mange tusener av norske unge menn har kjempet slag for egne verdier på fjerne slagmarker rundt omkring i verden. De siste tiårene har det vaert en økende interesse for norske «fremmedkrigere» i den amerikanske borgerkrigen, så vel som under første verdenskrig. Derimot er det en gruppe norske krigere som ikke har fått samme oppmerksomhet som borgerkrigssoldatene og skyttergravsvokterne. Boerkrigens norske frivillige. Boerkrigen -kort fortalt. Boerkrigen, også kalt den andre boerkrigen, brøt ut i 1899 etter lengre tids politisk spenning mellom det britiske kolonistyret i Sør-Afrika og de to boer-republikken Oranjefristaten og Den Sydafrikanske Republikk. Krigen er å betrakte som en del av det afrikanske kappløpet, og en oppfølgerkrig etter Transvaalkrigen, også kjent som den første boerkrigen. Britene styrte før 1899 store deler av den syd-afrikanske kystlinjen og Natal-kolonien. Dog var det innlandets store gull-og diamant-forekomster britene hungret etter, og det var uenighetene om disse verdifulle ressursene som var årsaken til boerkrigens utbrudd. For boerne var det ikke bare en kamp om ressurser, men en kamp om frihet og rettigheter for den boerske folkegruppen, som på denne tiden var Sør-Afrikas nest største hvite befolkningsgruppe. Da boerkrigen brøt ut i 1899 var den tredje største hvite befolkningsgruppen i regionen skandinaver. Mange nordmenn bosatte seg der i jakten på urørt jord og gullrike gruver. Disse skandinavene ble en sentral del av krigens blodige forløp. Sammenligner vi litteratur skrevet om de norske boersoldatene med litteraturen om nordmenn som deltok i blant annet første verdenskrig, den spanske og den amerikanske borgerkrigen, kommer boersoldatene beskjedent fra det. Det er også tydelig at hverken norsk presse eller den norske staten i soldatenes samtid brydde seg mye om dem. Ingen av de store norske dagsavisene nevnte nordmennene som kjempet under boerkrigen, ei heller Skandinaviens Korps 1 . Dette til tross for at Aftenposten hadde en egen krigskorrespondent i Sør-Afrika på denne tiden 2 .

- by Oskar Aanmoen
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- Military History, South Africa (History), Norwegian History, South African history

This book pays tribute to the legacy of Shamima Shaikh, one of the most outstanding muslim feminist in South Africa. It is an anthology marking the twentieth anniversary of her death and celebrating her life of faith, compassion, courage,... more

- by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente and +1
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- Women's Studies, Apartheid, Women and Gender Issues in Islam, Islamic feminism

This serves as report on a second in a series of train-the-trainer workshops held in March 2019 by the South African Museums Association to improve heritage preservation skills in South African institutions, which focused on the care and repair of paper-based objects in heritage collections. Paper-based objects are very common in heritage collections, often hiding in plain sight due to the contemporary ubiquity of paper. They may take the form of institutional records, or support non-text formats such as photographic prints. Paper-based objects will form part of most museums' preservation responsibilities, making a working understanding of the preservation challenges to paper-based collections an essential component of any museum's institutional preservation activities: having a working understanding of paper, its preservation challenges and care is essential for heritage intuitions. The workshop was held at the Western Cape Archives and Records Service (Cape Town), South Africa's oldest and second-largest government archive. The Archive holds an extensive collection of book and paper documents, estimated at some 45 linear kilometres of shelved records that documents the settlement and colonisation of South Africa. The workshop made use of the Archives' records collection to teach the workshop participants about the history and development of papermaking and bookmaking within the context of South African institutional collections.

- by Mary Minicka
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- Book and Paper Conservation, Archives, South African history

This beautifully illustrated book is appealing to a wider audience with a general interest in the Anglo-Boer War and the role that women and families played during the war. The haunting images tell a story about the trials and tribulations Afrikaans and black South Africans faced in concentration camps throughout the country and make a contribution to the history of the period in their own right. The chapters have been organised in such a way that various dimensions surrounding the Anglo-Boer war are addressed. The first chapter establishes the background of the tension between the British and Boers highlighting the concept of Afrikaner nationalism and patriarchy as a result. Chapter two further added to this context through discussing the strategic scorched earth policy by the British troops. Chapter three had a women centred approach by addressing Nonnie De La Rey's life during the Anglo-Boer War. This was followed by chapter four which explored the daily life in the camps, while chapter five focused more on the British doctors in the camps versus the Afrikaans women's medical knowledge. Chapter six and seven looked at specific populations in the concentration camps, firstly looking at children's experience in the concentration camps and followed by the roles and experiences of black people in the camps. Chapter eight explored the role of humour and how it was used as both a defence and attack by the Boers. Chapter nine looked at the details of the creating and planning of the Woman's Monument in Bloemfontein followed by chapter ten which discussed the contextual meaning of the monument from construction in 1913 compared to 2013. The book ends with a chapter on Emily Hobhouse's speech at the inauguration of the Woman's Monument. All of these chapters used captivating and thought provoking images. As a primary source these photographs were effective by giving the 'invisible actors' being women and families, a stronger representation. Most of these images have not been used before when exploring the Anglo-Boer War, which gives a new approach to how we understand the impact of the war but also acts as a snapshot of reality during the time period. One of the gems in this book is Zelda Rowan's chapter about Nonnie de la Rey. This chapter placed Nonnie, the Boer Commander Koos de la Rey's wife, as the centre of story which offered the reader the opportunity to learn about a woman who did not allow herself to become a victim during the war. She was self-sufficient and could make bread, candles and other commodities while being a fugitive in the veld for 18 months, leading her 6 children and 3 servants away from danger. Themes such as the relationship with the British troops and the origins of the identity of a volksmoeder (directly translated as the 'mother of the nation') emerged, leaving the readers in awe about Nonnie's strength, hardship and determination. This chapter in particular places the role of women in the centre of historical analysis during the war. There are other sporadic accounts of women's experiences in the concentration camps scattered throughout the book, giving excellent primary sources of first-hand accounts by women in the

- by François-Xavier Fauvelle
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- Apartheid, South African history

This study focuses on the exhibition of Sara Baartman as the “Hottentot Venus” in London and Paris, 1810-1815. A long history of travelogues and their illustrations shaped the content and reception of Baartman’s display. As the first significant ethnographic exhibition of the 19th century, Baartman’s promoters transferred the advertisting skills developed in so-called freak shows to a new pseudo-educational purpose that would make staged exhibitions of people into an effective tool of scientific racism and the promotion of colonial empires.
The article is based on careful mining of primary sources in order to recover some of Baartman’s experience and agency. It is the first to analyze the contradictory messages of Baartman’s two exhibition posters. In the appendix, the text reproduces the affidavits sworn in 1810 following a complaint by abolitionists about the legal grounds for the exhibition. These include an interview with Baartman herself on Nov. 27, 1810.

By the latter half of 1942, the High Command of the German U-Boats (BdU) realised that the “sinking results’’ of the North Atlantic had decreased immensely. The successes of the Allied anti-submarine operations in the North Atlantic precluded the successful employment of the German submarines in said waters. It was realised that the “sinking potential” of the Cape Town - Freetown convoy route, in terms of tonnage, had increased exponentially by the latter half of 1942. This sudden increase was a direct result of the successful German submarine operations in the North Atlantic during 1939-1942. The first German submarine offensive in South African waters during 1942, Operation Eisbär, was aimed at striking a devastating blow to shipping off the South African coast. By the end of December 1942 an estimated 310 864 tons of shipping had been sunk through Operation Eisbär alone. The success of Operation Eisbär led to a further two German submarine offensives being launched by the BdU in South African waters during the remainder of the Second World War, with a number of opportunistic attacks also made by submarines travelling to the Far East. This paper deals with the German Submarine Offensives off the South African Coast between1942 and 1945. It focusses on three key aspects of the maritime war off the South African coast: the maritime threat perception, the Axis maritime strategy in these waters, and the resulting
U-boat offensives.

- by Evert Kleynhans
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- Military History, Military Science, Strategy (Military Science), Maritime History

Franks, P.E. (2005) A Warning on the Decay of Social Fabric in South Africa, Final Panel Discussion, Third South African Public Management Conversation, African peer review mechanism, Fancourt Hotel, George, Western Cape South Africa, 7-9... more

""De la guerre de Sept ans aux émancipations nationales de l’Amérique ibérique, les sociétés européennes et coloniales de l’espace atlantique connaissent une série de ruptures politiques majeures qui redessinent la carte politique des Amériques comme de l’Europe. L’hémisphère occidental se peuple de nouveaux Etats, républiques ou empires, l’un éphémère – le Mexique –, l’autre durable – le Brésil. Or, si les Révolutions américaine et française, et, depuis peu, haïtienne, ont pris toute leur place dans la séquence prestigieuse des révolutions atlantiques, les indépendances hispano-américaines et brésilienne continuent à apparaître comme des mouvements incomplets ou ratés. Ce jugement sévère ne fait pas justice à la richesse et à la complexité de ces révolutions d’indépendance qui posèrent de façon précoce la question de l’égalité civile et de l’esclavage, au sein de sociétés coloniales où les libres de couleur et les Indiens étaient souvent majoritaires.
Rassemblant des contributions de spécialistes reconnus des trois continents, L’Atlantique révolutionnaire : une perspective ibéro-américaine traduit la richesse et le dynamisme de l’historiographie actuelle sur le moment révolutionnaire ibérique et ibéro-américain. Il place le sous-continent au centre de l’attention sans pour autant négliger la question devenue classique des imbrications et des interactions impériales, aux Antilles, notamment. Inscrit dans la perspective de la nouvelle histoire atlantique, il explore les dimensions sociales, politiques et « raciales » d’un moment décisif pour la modernité politique et la construction de sociétés plurielles confrontées à la dialectique de la liberté et de l’esclavage, de l’égalité et de la discrimination. ""

- by Alejandro E Gómez
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- Latin American Studies, Gender Studies, Anthropology, Education

The conservative South African Mine Workers' Union (MWU) was one of the most prominent white trade unions in apartheid South Africa. Since 1948 this union enjoyed a symbiotic relationship under the National Party government with regard to... more

- by Wessel P Visser
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- South African history

A short piece on Ruth First and her writing as agency for social transformation

To cite this Article Posel, Deborah(2010) 'Races to consume: revisiting South Africa's history of race, consumption and the struggle for freedom ', Ethnic and Racial Studies, 33:... more

To cite this Article Posel, Deborah(2010) 'Races to consume: revisiting South Africa's history of race, consumption and the struggle for freedom ', Ethnic and Racial Studies, 33: 2,[157][158][159][160][161][162][163][164][165][166][167][168][169][170][171][172][173][174][175] To link to this Article:

The 1998 edition included new research on the apartheid governments covert operations against dissidents, activists and resistance movements as well as an analysis of the ideological mentality that led to such actions by the minority state. The 1994 and 1998 editions were the first academic works that attempted to come to grips with the theory and practice of covert operations and the links with ideological mobilisation during the years of (sham-) reform under the presidency of P W Botha and the state security council (SSC). Copies available in numerous university libraries in South Africa as well as the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) of South Africa. For more information: jankalahari@gmail.com

- by Jeremy Martens
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- New Zealand Studies, Race and Racism, Immigration, Immigration History
- by Ndikho Mtshiselwa
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- Development Studies, Apartheid, South African history, Land reform

This article explores the possible linkages between the demise of communism in 1989 and apartheid in 1994. Through a comparative analysis of case studies of Poland – as the representative ‘first domino’ to fall in Eastern Europe – and South Africa, it shows that there existed in fact certain parallels in the way the communist and apartheid regimes developed and ended. Subsequently, it discusses the effect that the events of 1989 had on the domestic political situation in South Africa thereby transcending the more traditional transnational approach as South Africa was not connected in any direct way to Eastern Europe. In spite of this apparent lack of connection, part of the South African opposition sought inspiration in the tactics of the Eastern European anti-communist opposition. As this article argues this merely represented a ‘copycat phenomenon’ in which activists in one situation mimicked the actions of others in a different situation, and as such can serve to explain similarities in processes of regime change in different and unconnected parts of the world.

- by Tom Junes
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- Polish History, African History, Eastern European history, Communism

Print culture came to South Africa with the Dutch East India Company, followed by the British colonisers. This influence persisted after colonisation officially ended, with the Union of South Africa in 1910. Many early publishers and booksellers were immigrants, especially Dutch immigrants. While the settlers were Dutch, many lent their support to Afrikaner nationalist causes. This article considers the implications of the colonial influence for the development of South African print culture, using a case study of Van Schaik Publishers, which was founded by a Dutch Immigrant, JL van Schaik, in 1914. Attention is paid to the question of how this early publisher saw its role in developing an ‘imagined community’ that
engaged both with the culture of the coloniser and that of the developing settler colony. It is argued that Van Schaik played a significant role in the development of Afrikaans publishing, but little scholarly attention has been paid to his publishing
philosophy and strategy.

- by Beth Le Roux
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- History of Publishing, South African history

Urban places and spaces are not comprehensible without an understanding of the material sources from which they derive energy . Today, having constructed a social order based on electricity, we are confronted with the apparently insoluble dilemmas posed by the use of oil, natural gas and nuclear power. Coal still plays a central part in generating energy in South Africa, but for the era of the beginning of South African industrialization, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was unique in its importance as an energy source.

- by Jonathan Hyslop
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- Environmental History, South Africa (History), South African history

This is one of the first books to examine slave emancipation in the Atlantic World as a gendered project. Liberating the Family? focuses on the worlds that freed people attempted to build and the ways in which colonial racial and gendered... more

- by Pamela Scully
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- Women's History, Gender History, Atlantic World, History of Slavery
- by Baba Jallow
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- South African history