Magister Theologiae - MTh / The purpose of this investigation is to discuss the relevance of Black theology in light of the emergence of reconstruction theology. It offers a critical survey of a range of contributions on this issue, questioning whether scholars who have used Black theology as a form of self description should shift emphasis, from the paradigm of liberation to reconstruction. The significance of this study has to be understood within the context of the proposal to redirect African theological initiatives from liberation theologies to reconstruction theology. The basis for this call was the end of apartheid in South Africa, which signalled the independence of all countries on the African continent. / South Africa

Magister Theologiae - MTh / The understanding and practice of leadership in Sub-Saharan Africa, in all spheres, is at the heart beat of this work. Questions and concerns over the quality of leadership in most countries in this particular region are reasons which have led to revisit and investigate the formative training of the current cohort of African leadership with a special focus on the ethical aspect of leadership. It is an assumption, in this thesis, that the contemporary cohort of African leadership received their formative training especially in the 1960s and 1970s and that they were deeply influenced by the black consciousness movement and, in association with that, by the emergence of black theology. In this respect, this research project explores the notions of ethics and leadership with a view to determine ways in which an appropriate leadership ethos was portrayed and articulated in the writings of selected exponents of the black theology movement, namely ML King (Jr), Desmond Tutu and Allan Boesak. The purpose of this work is therefore mainly descriptive: to map discourse on a leadership ethos in the context especially of black theology. / South Africa

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE WITS SCHOOL OF THE ARTS, UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND, 2015 / South Africa’s post-apartheid era has, in a space of nearly two decades, experienced a massive memory boom manifest in a plethora of new memorials, monuments, museums and the renaming of streets, parks, dams and buildings. This memorialisation process is intrinsically linked to questions of power, struggles and contestation in the making and remaking of the South African nation. The questions of power, struggle and contestation manifest as a wave of debates on the place of history, collective memory, identity and social cohesion in the inception as well as the functioning of the various memorialisation projects in society. This thesis concludes that debates concerning the meaning(s) as well as the way in which the June 16, 1976 uprisings have been memorialized, has been ongoing for the last three decades, and will continue into the future. This, as the findings bear out, is because the wider contextual situating of collective memory in its intangible and tangible form is intrinsically linked to complex experiences of the past; to ongoing experiments of a “nation” in the making, as well as pressing contemporary social challenges. The thesis also concludes that questions of power, struggle and contestation also manifest as a quest for relevant idioms and aesthetics of re-representation and memorialisation. Further, the thesis makes observations on the politics behind the assembling and the assembled archive as a toolkit in the fashioning of pasts and the making of collective memory. It reflects on the processes of re-thinking and remaking of the June 16, 1976 archive. These conclusions have been arrived at through an investigation of how the memory and meaning of the June 16, 1976 uprisings have been re-constructed, re-represented and fashioned over the last three decades. This was done by tracking and analysing the complex, diverse forms and character of its memorialisation. In the process, the study arrives at a conclusion that the memorialisation of the June 16, 1976 uprisings is characterised by the multiplicity of tangible and intangible features. The intangible features are characterised by forgetting, at one level, and are, on another level, animated through rituals of commemoration, counter- commemoration and memorial debate. The memorial debate on the uprisings is that of unity and diversity, division, contestation and counter-commemoration and essentially irresolvable, as history and memory are tools to address contemporary challenges.

The study insists on understanding the miscarriage of “Pan-Africanism” and the role of “African” mentality with the help of Fanon’s psychoanalysis “Black Skin, White Mask,” exemplifying the immense colonial, slavery, and apartheid psychological damages experienced by Black individuals resulting Blacks/Africans self-hate and a desire to be “white” throughout the domain of Western culture, ideology, and language. To provide accurate analysis of the “Pan-African” failure to solve increasing blacks-hate-against-blacks/xenophobia in South Africa, concepts othering, mimicry, subaltern from the critical theory (postcolonialism) were applied. Thereupon, Qualitative Content Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis relying on the theoretical concepts were conducted, which underlined how the mimicry process makes Africa's interaction an elite-driven one, oppressing African/subaltern citizens. The findings showed a need for "Black-Consciousness" and Nkrumah's “Pan-African” vision (African unification) to end colonial-mentality generating collective subordination of Subaltern/Africans. Generally, the use of Fanon’s psycho-social analysis has shown that the generational oppression, trauma, and cultural stereotypes continue to robotize and dictate African leaders and the African Union's favoritism of Western “neo-liberal” policies. It is summarized that the “Pan-African” failure is a failure of gradual unconscious “Pan-Africanists” who pledge allegiance to “Western” policies rather than rededicating themselves to durable Radical “Pan-Africanism” which is an antidote to Africa’s self-hate/xenophobia, neo-colonialism, and the robotization of unconscious Africans.

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 (MA (English))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Grace and The Townships Housewife, two black women’s magazines published in South Africa between 1964 and 1969, have slipped into obscurity. This thesis aims to write them back into the history of the black press, black journalism and literature in South Africa. The study is significant in that no research has as yet been conducted on these two magazines. The first chapter excavates Grace and The Townships Housewife from obscurity by providing information on the magazines’ publication, staff, editors, content, target audience and writers. A salient characteristic of both magazines’ content that the study discusses is the ambiguous attitude of readers and writers towards modernity and tradition (and the negotiation of new identities) as they move from the country to the city. Some readers’ embrace and others’ rejection of early signs of feminism and womanism in the magazines also display this ambiguous attitude. The chapter foregrounds the various ambiguities and often colliding voices that infuse much of the magazines’ content. The absence of explicit reference to apartheid in Grace’s and The Townships Housewife’s content provides another focal point of this chapter and is discussed in relation to the concepts of ‘minstrelsy’ and ‘mimicry’. Considering specifically the position of the black woman in apartheid South Africa, the second chapter compares the representation of white women in South African white women’s magazines Die Huisgenoot, Sarie Marais and Fair Lady to the way in which black women are represented in Grace and The Townships Housewife in the 1960s. The role of the latter two magazines in positively representing black women during apartheid South Africa, and thus standing in direct opposition to the identities ascribed to black people in colonial and apartheid ideology, is a primary focus of this chapter. The representation of black women in the 1960s is elaborated on in the next chapter which explores the shift in the representation of black women from Drum magazine (during its heyday in the 1950s), with its predominantly male staff, to the representation of black women in Grace and The Townships Housewife (in the 1960s), with their predominantly female staff. I hypothesise on the possible agencies at work within this shift in women’s representation. Despite the magazines’ adherence at times to white standards of beauty (an aspect which the thesis engages with throughout), the ‘creation’ of black women within the pages of Grace and The Townships Housewife (as the previous two chapters articulate), often resonates with Black Consciousness’s philosophy of black pride. This last chapter explores the possible connection between Grace and The Townships Housewife, on the one hand, and the early beginnings of an emergent black consciousness in South Africa in the late 1960s, on the other hand. It also discusses the sexism associated with black consciousness philosophy in relation to these two magazines, but the focus falls on how black female readers of Grace and The Townships Housewife negotiate imposed ‘female identities’ (for example, mother, housewife and supporter) towards greater agency. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Grace en The Townships Housewife, twee tydskrifte gemik op swart vroue en wat in Suid-Afrika gepubliseer is tussen 1964 en 1969, is vandag onbekend. Die doel van dié tesis is om hierdie twee tydskrifte terug te skryf in die geskiedenis van swart joernalistiek en literatuur in Suid-Afrika. Dit is ’n waardevolle studie aangesien geen navorsing oor hierdie twee tydskrifte nog gedoen is nie. Dit is ook ’n ingewikkelde proses wat gepaard gaan met baie spekulasie, aangesien dit alreeds te lank gevat het vir hierdie tydskrifte om ontdek te word – dit is nie meer moontlik om die meeste van die bydraers tot hierdie twee tydskrifte op te spoor nie. Die eerste hoofstuk ‘grawe’ Grace en The Townships Housewife as t’ ware weer ‘op’ deur inligting te voorsien oor hierdie tydskrifte se uitgewers, personeel, redaktrises, inhoud, teikengroepe en skrywers. Die dubbelsinnige houdings wat lesers in die tydskrifte toon teenoor tradisie en moderniteit soos wat hulle beweeg van plattelandse gebiede na stedelike gebiede, is kenmerkend van hierdie tydskrifte en word in hierdie hoofstuk bespreek. Hierdie dubbelsinnigheid word ook weerspieël in lesers en skrywers se ambivalente houdinge teenoor die bemagtiging van vroue. Die verskeie dubbelsinnighede en dikwels botsende stemme in meeste van die twee tydskrifte se inhoud is ’n belangrike punt wat hierdie tesis uitlig. Die afwesigheid van direkte verwysings na apartheid in beide tydskrifte is nog ’n kenmerkende eienskap van die tydskrifte wat in hierdie hoofstuk ondersoek word. Met die fokus op die posisie van die swart vrou in apartheid Suid-Afrika, vergelyk die tweede hoofstuk die voorstelling van wit vroue in Suid-Afrikaanse wit vrouetydskrifte (Die Huisgenoot, Sarie Marais en Fair Lady) met dié van swart vroue in Grace en The Townships Housewife in die 1960s. ’n Primêre fokus van hierdie hoofstuk is die rol wat Grace en The Townships Housewife speel in die positiewe voorstelling van swart vroue tydens apartheid, in direkte kontras tot die voorstellinge van swart vroue in apartheid ideologie. Die volgende hoofstuk brei verder uit op die voorstelling van die swart vrou in die 1960s: hier word gekyk na die skuif wat plaasvind in die voorstelling van swart vroue van die Drum-tydskrif in die 1950s met sy hoofsaaklik manlike personeel, na die voorstelling van swart vroue in 1960s Grace en The Townships Housewife, met hoofsaaklik vroulike personeel. Die moontlike faktore verantwoordelik vir so ’n verandering in voorstelling word oorweeg. Alhoewel die inhoud van Grace en The Townships Housewife gereeld ‘wit’ standaarde van skoonheid ondersteun, toon die voorstelling van swart vroue in hierdie twee tydskrifte ook dikwels ooreenkomste met swart bewustheid filosofie se fokus op swart trots. Hierdie laaste hoofstuk ondersoek die moontlike verbintenis tussen Grace en The Townships Housewife, aan die een kant, en die vroeë begin van swart bewustheid in Suid-Afrika in die laat sestigerjare. Die dikwels seksistiese houdinge wat met swart bewustheid filosofie geassosieer word, word in hierdie hoofstuk bespreek aan die hand van voorbeelde uit Grace en The Townships Housewife. Dit is egter nie die fokus van hierdie studie nie: die fokus val op hoe swart vroue lesers van Grace en The Townships Housewife opgelegde rolle van moederskap, huisvrou en ondersteuners stuur tot posisies van groter mag.

This is a historical study of AWG Champion, the former leader of the Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union (ICU) and provincial President of the African National Congress, in the politics of Zululand and Natal from 1965 to 1975. The study examines the introduction of the Zulu homeland and how different political forces in that region of South Africa responded to the idea of a Zulu homeland during the period under review. It also deals with Champion's political alienation from the ANC. This dissertation is also a study of the development of Zulu ethnic nationalism within the structures of apartheid or separate development, the homelands. Issues running throughout the study are the questions of how and why Champion tried and failed to manipulate `separate development' in order to build a Zulu ethnic political base. / History / M.A. (History)

This research is concerned with the notion of being human. It acknowledges the dislocation of black people through themselves, a process which was exacerbated during, the colonial era and further through apartheid. The interest in this research is due to the historical dehumanisation of black people through dispossession and subjection to foreign rule and culture, by white people. The historical accounts of dehumanisation and disparity, through either pigmentation, poverty or an inferiority complex, led to black people viewing their humanity in terms of materialism and individualism in the present context. This research explores how materialism and individualism have affected black people's understanding of themselves and self-determinism. It is argued in the United States through Black Theology, the notion of the Black Church in the South African context and through Black Consciousness that the humanity of black people is affirmed historically and to date. / Philosophy & Systematic Theology / M.Th. (Systematic Theology)

Es'kia Mphahlele's concept of African humanism was a seminal influence on Black Consciouness thought and provided the philosophical basis for a landmark body of South African criticism and aesthetics wilh roots in Africa. African humanism as a black ethos, combined with rich metaphoric speech, symbols, values and myths resurrected from the deep African past, afforded the author a powerful cultural weapon with which to criticize centuries of colonialism, racism, and state apartheid, related western industrial forces of economic exploitation and alienation. Moreover, the counterweights of African humanism and alienation in the dialogue of two selves -- one that is Western-educated and colonized and the other African -- contribute key elements of realism, vitality, humour, insight, cultural identity, and characterization to Mphahlele's most effective protest writing which, in turn, has helped to shape a black nationalist vision which has surprising relevance to South Africa in the 1990s. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

This dissertation is a biography of Beyers Naude, from his birth in 1915 . until 1977, focusing attention on the period 1963 to 1977, when he was director of the Christian Institute. The study examines how Naude, whose father championed Afrikaans, became a leading minister in the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC). It examines the challenges which confronted Naude over the DRC's support fqr apartheid. The dissertation documents the factors that led Naude to reject apartheid and clash with the DRC, the Broederbond and the National Party government, culminating in his banning in 1977. It assesses the contribution he made to debates on apartheid in church and political circles and explains how he increasingly supported black initiatives to end white rule. The dissertation shows that Naude's background and leadership qualities enabled him to have an impact on the church and political scene as apartheid became a burning issue at home and abroad. / History / M.A. (History)