Text in Afrikaans / History / M.A. (Geskiedenis)

A Dissertation submitted,.to the Faculty of Arts in ftllfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master in International Relations / Andrew Chakane 2018

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, 2017 / This thesis examines how the political subjectivity of black youth took shape within the violent period of late colonialism in South Africa known as apartheid. As a historico-philosophical inquiry that aims to understand the historical modalities of subject formation and political practice, the thesis is grounded in extensive original research on black youth politics in the townships of the Vaal region south of Johannesburg during the 1980s and early 1990s. At the same time, the thesis interprets the findings of that historical research through a critical engagement with the philosophical work of various thinkers (including Hegel, Nietzsche, Benjamin, Foucault, Fanon, Mamdani, Mbembe, Zizek and Maldonado-Torres, among others) in an effort to address the problem of freedom in relation to the black subject under colonial and post-colonial rule. The thesis shows how colonial authority and governance both posits and aims to reproduce what I call the ‘permanent juniority’ of blacks generally, and of black youth in particular. Key sites for the exercise of such authority and governance in the townships under apartheid included the street and the school, where blacks were subjected to social, infrastructural and disciplinary violence. In examining one ‘Bantu’ high school in depth, I show how black youth were subjected to what I call a ‘pedagogy of offence’ – a mode of socialisation and discipline based on the premise that black youth, merely by virtue of being black, are always already guilty of breaching the socio-political order and are therefore addressed as delinquents. The thesis shows how a collective black youth subject constituted itself in revolt against this disciplinary regime. In the course of this revolt, the figure of the outlaw comrade, or ‘com-tsotsi’, emerged, occupying an ambiguous position between political resistance and illegal criminality. This figure is shown to have a genealogy originating in slavery and the Frontier Wars in the Cape, and extending to the early period of mining and industrial capitalism in Johannesburg. In the concluding chapters, which explore the underground activities of Self-Defence Units as violence on the Vaal reached its apogee in the early 1990s, the thesis probes the ethical ambiguity that emerges when violence is used in the service of a politics of love and emancipation. Here, I argue that the constitution of a collective black youth political subject in revolt also suggests a theory of black emancipation: of subjectivity beyond object-hood, of political love and everyday life beyond colonial violence and death, and of a political optimism oriented toward freedom. / XL2018

This dissertation examines the factors leading to the opening of negotiations to majority rule in South Africa. It argues that changes to the socio-economic environment led to the growth of the strategic relevance of the black working class, and also created certain points of collision between the black working class and the policies of the state. These sectoral collisions engendered both the partial reforms of the Botha era as well as the rejection of these reforms by the black majority. The developments that emerged from the ensuing process of reform, resistance and repression in the 1980s weakened both the state and the black opposition sufficiently to allow for the emergence of a consensual solution to the political stalemate. / Dissertation submitted in accordance with the requirements of the University of Liverpool for the degree of Master of Arts

No abstract available.

This thesis argues that F.W. de Klerk's historic February 1990 speech was the end product of a set of circumstances in recent South African and global history which made possible the new phase of transitional politics which South Africa is currently experiencing. It seeks to establish that of all the factors that contributed to change, it was the late 1980s thaw in the Cold War, and its resultant repercussions internationally and regionally which was the catalytic factor which made the new era possible. In all the literature on transition there has been no comprehensive analysis of the plausible link between the two superpowers agreeing in the mid-1980s to abandon confrontational practices and to change their approaches to regional conflicts and the South African government agreeing to negotiate for a new political dispensation. This thesis will seek to establish and analyse such a link. By 1986 there was in certain governmental circles a non-public view that the policy of apartheid had failed both as a solution to the problem of black political aspirations and as a legitimating ideology. Constraining any serious move towards political change was a widely held fear at the top level of government that an accelerated reform process would make South Africa vulnerable to external aggression and internal revolutionary forces. This thesis suggests that the collapse of communist rule in Eastern Europe and the 'new political thinking' in Soviet foreign policy resulted in the notion of a communist-inspired total onslaught against South Africa losing currency - as did the position of those within the ruling elite who remained dogmatically attached to it. The end of the Cold War is the common thread which links South Africa's international , regional and domestic environments. Two important events occurred in the international and regional arenas, which against the backdrop of the end of the Cold War, strengthened the credibility of the alternative view in government: (i) the October 1986 Reykjavik Summit and (ii) the South African Defence Force setback at Cuito Cuanavale. P.W. Botha's resignation as leader of the National Party and soon after as State President created the political space through which the view of the reformers could emerge as dominant. Recognising that neither the international nor regional environments sustained the beliefs and fears held by the military hawks, F.W. de Klerk was able to capitalise on the ambience of negotiations and apply it to the South African situation. De Klerk's February 1990 speech was therefore the culmination of a process which had its origins in the mid-1980's.

Hierdie is 'n psigobiografiese studie van Generaal Christiaan Rudolph de Wet. 'n Psigobiografiese studie is die bestudering van 'n persoon se volledige lewe met die doel om die persoon beter te verstaan. Psigobiografiese navorsing maak gebruik van psigologiese teorieë wat aangewend word om die biografiese data van 'n persoon se lewe te beskryf en moontlik ook te verklaar. Die individu wat bestudeer word, is gewoonlik 'n bekende, invloedryke, navolgenswaardige, interessante of modelfiguur. Daar is tans 'n oplewing in die veld van psigobiografiese studies, maar daar word nog steeds nie genoeg in die akademiese veld gedoen om psigobiografiese studies te bevorder nie. De Wet (1854-1922) is vir hierdie studie gekies omdat hy 'n interessante, dog komplekse figuur was. Hy het veral tydens die Anglo-Boereoorlog in 1899-1902 bekendheid verwerf. As 45-jarige man het De Wet in die Anglo-Boereoorlog geveg en vinnig opgang as 'n militêre leier gemaak. Sy vindingryke ontsnappingspogings het die Britse magte hoofbrekens besorg. Wat De Wet verder uniek maak, is dat hy met net drie maande skoolopleiding in die parlement gedien het, as president verkies is, die hoogste gesag in die Verdedigingsmag gehad het en 'n boek oor sy oorlogsherinneringe geskryf het. Alhoewel daar akademiese werke oor De Wet bestaan, is daar tot op hede nog geen psigobiografiese studie oor hom gedoen nie. Die doel van die studie was om die mens agter die legende na vore te bring. Daar is ook gepoog om moontlike antwoorde en verklarings op onbeantwoorde vrae te gee. Die studie het van beide kwalitatiewe en kwantitatiewe data gebruik gemaak en kan as 'n psigobiografiese gevalstudie beskryf word. Die Vyf-faktor model van Costa en McCrae (1992) is op die biografiese data van De Wet toegepas om sodoende sy persoonlikheidseienskappe te beskryf. Die bevindinge het interessante persoonlikheidseienskappe van De Wet deur middel van die Vyf-faktor model aan die lig gebring. Volgens die kwalitatiewe navorsingsbevindinge was De Wet 'n vyandige, aksie-gedrewe, bevoegde, prestasie-strewende, selfgedissiplineerde, warm, openhartige, saggeaarde en beskeie persoon. Die kwalitatiewe en kwantitatiewe data-ontledings het uiteenlopende persoonlikheidskenmerke by De Wet geïdentifiseer. Die grootste verskille het by die fasette warmte, openhartigheid en altruïsme voorgekom. Die waarde van die studie is dat 'n wetenskaplike persoonlikheidsontleding van De Wet gedoen is. Dit is ook die eerste studie waar 'n teoretiese model op De Wet se persoonlikheid toegepas is. Alhoewel die studie sekere tekortkominge toon, beklemtoon dit terselfdertyd die wenslikheid daarvan om alternatiewe modelle te gebruik tydens die ontleding van persoonlikheidskenmerke. Die studie dui ook op die behoefte aan verdere navorsing, byvoorbeeld soortgelyke ontledings en vergelykings van die persoonlikhede van ander militêre bevelvoerders (De la Rey, Smuts, Beyers, Hertzog).

Steve Biko returns and continues to illuminate the postapartheid social order. His contestation by various claimants for different reasons shows his continuing and lasting legacy. However he finds a special niche among a disenfranchised and frustrated township youth who are trapped in township struggles where they attempt to derive a meaning. More important is why these youth who neither saw nor participated in the struggle against apartheid are turning to an age old idea like Black Consciousness in a context of the pervasive influence of non-racialism, rainbowism and triumphalism of neo-liberalism. The realisation is that a human-centred society with a human face which Black Consciousness practitioners advocated and strove for is yet to be realised. This shows the anomalies and maladies of a postcolonial dispensation where ideals, principles and teleology of the liberation struggle are yet to be consummated. Thus Black Consciousness as a node in a long thread of black political thought in the country; and as a spirit, will always be both an emotion, and a motion that finds a new meaning with each generation.

Thesis submitted to the faculty of arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of arts. / This thesis examines the political trajectories of the Independent union movement from 1970-1993. It argues that the political strategies adopted by tbe unions' leadership reflected significant difterences with regard to the political contest over the democratic form of South African society. The political ideology of the unions' leadership was made up of two contrasting 'logics' of political struggle. The one, which we characterise as "simple polarisation", viewed the objective of the unions' struggles primarily in terms of a competition for political dominance which involved a simple dichotomy between the apartheid state and a unified opposition movement. In this view the opposition was conceived of as a homogenous, collective subject, unified in its common assault on the state. Underlying this logic of opposition was a denial of specific and different identities and interests and democracy was seen to be directly associated with the destiny of one distinct social actor. The logic of "simple polarisation" was dominant within the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) throughout the 1980's. It was nourished primarily by COSATU's close relationship with the charterist section of the wider opposition movement There existed within the unions a second political tradition which emphasised a logic of "institutionalised pluralism". This current viewed the organisation of opposition primarily in institutional terms. It emphasised the building of union independence outside the aegis of the wider opposltlon movement. Underlying this tradition was a pluralist conception of democracy, Associated with the early Federation of South African Trade Unions legacy of institutional independence, this logic reared its head within COSATU towards the late 1980's when the federation entered a series of corporatist arrangements with employers and the state. Although there seems to be evidence that there existed (at least some) support within the ranks of FOSATU of a form of workers' control more easily reconellable with an anti-pluralist than pluralist conception of democracy, the nature of FOSATU was such, that. when sufficiently pressed on the issue of which logic of democracy - "simple polarisation" or "institutionalised pluralism" - it endorsed, the latter would have been selected over the former. / Andrew Chakane 2019

In the mid-twentieth century Egyptian President Gamal Abdel-Nasser, along with President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana rose to international prominence as leaders and visionaries who were able to achieve political independence in their respective home countries while attempting to shape a destiny for Africa that did not involve Western imperialism. For Nasser's part, he first secured independence for Egypt, then turned his attention to the Middle East, but soon became as active in the politics of Sub Saharan Africa, also known as black Africa, as he was in the Arab world. This thesis explores Nasser's forays into Sub Saharan Africa during the period of decolonization on the continent and how his aspirations for Africa were equally a part of his political agenda that came to be known as Nasserism. Considering Nasser was the leader of the Third bloc, Egypt's fate was tied to Africa just as much as it was to the Middle East. Beyond the aspects of Nasser's involvement in Africa, this work also explores the active role Africans played in their quest for independence from European colonizers. Many African leaders during this time were as prominent and as shrewd as Nasser and were committed to establishing an anti-imperialist continent while developing modern African states based on the principles of Pan Africanism. While this occurred, new countries began to enter Africa and it became up to the African heads of state to determine how much involvement they wanted from these outsiders and at what cost. As these many dynamics played out in Africa, Pan Africanism was simultaneously occurring in the United States that linked black America's fate with Africa in movements that emphasized black nationalism and Third World political ideology.