The white South Africans who opposed apartheid

As South Africa approaches the twentieth anniversary of the country’s first non-racial, democratic election in 1994, there is a reassessment of the iconic liberation struggle and the extent to which the legacies of apartheid continue to define everyday life. In particular, white South Africans’ place in the country remains controversial and the extent to which  they should be held to account for their complicity in apartheid continues to be hotly debated. White South Africans who opposed apartheid were the exception to the rule, but some did defy the norm and did so publicly and forcefully.

I interviewed white men who refused to serve in the South African Defence Force (SADF) in the 1980s and white men and women in the End Conscription Campaign (ECC) who campaigned against conscription and apartheid. Through this I became aware of how politically and socially significant the histories of these men and women continue to be in contemporary South Africa. The men who objected to military service did so for diverse personal, religious and political reasons, but what united them was both their rejection of apartheid and commitment to creating a non-racial, democratic country.

The ECC highlighted and amplified the unease in white society about the violent direction of the country under President PW Botha. A key argument of the ECC was that conscription and apartheid were inextricably linked and neither were in white self-interest. The growing loss of confidence, division and the open rejection of apartheid in white society were important factors leading to the release of Nelson Mandela and the beginning of the transition to democracy. Objectors to conscription and ECC activists also helped make Mandela’s call for reconciliation between races, and a South Africa where whites would have a home regardless of the past, more credible.

While the BBC’s John Simpson questions whether white people have a future in South Africa, the commitment of war resisters and ECC activists to the liberation struggle, sometimes at considerable personal cost, demonstrates the desire of these white South Africans for non-racial democracy. The fact that many have gone on to become politically influential in the new South Africa, refutes the simplistic assumption that whites cannot have a home or play a constructive role in the country. Indeed, Helen Zille, once vice chair of the ECC in the Western Cape, is now Premier of the Wester Cape province and leader of the Democratic Alliance political party.

Thinking about the ECC and conscientious objection in South Africa is important because we continue to live in a world where compulsory conscription defines the lives of men and women. In countries such as Israel, Turkey and Eritrea, the social and political dynamics of militarisation are remarkably similar to those in apartheid South Africa. Soldiers like Joe Glenton in the UK have also been imprisoned after objecting to what they consider to be the political use of the military in an unjust war.

The ECC was a highly creative protest movement that challenged the notion that to be a man you had to be a soldier and also helped to expose and destabilise apartheid. The men who refused to serve in the SADF for political reasons made personal, but very public acts of defiance, risking not only their freedom but their acceptance in white society and identities as men. When reflecting on the South African liberation struggle it is important to consider the defiance shown by these white men and women in order to help non-racial democracy happen and to end military conscription as a requirement of South African citizenship.


Daniel Conway is author of Masculinities, militarisation and the End Conscription campaign and Lecturer in Politics and International Studies in the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) at the Open University

Africa Day and Algerian National Cinema

Algeria is a complex society which remains little known or understood in the UK. This lack of knowledge was highlighted recently when Nick Robinson, the BBC’s lead political reporter, remarked half seriously that neither he nor his viewers knew very much about the country--or could even find it on the map! But Algeria is of increasing global geo-political significance, as recent events have indicated. That BBC report and David Cameron’s visit in the spring to Algiers—the first British prime minster ever to visit Algeria—were sparked by the hostage crisis in the Algerian desert which saw dozens of foreign nationals kidnapped by Al Qaida In The Islamic Maghreb. Algeria—like Mali—can be construed to some degree as an ideological battleground. But Algeria’s significance is not limited to its position with regard to security and its alliance with the West in the so-called war on terror. It is a country with major energy resources, great linguistic diversity, and numerous cultural treasures whether literary (renowned writers such as Assia Djebar), musical (Algeria gave the world raï) or cinematic (see below).  

Algeria ‘s history is informed by a wave of invasions, occupations and settlements—by Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs, Turks, and French. As one commentator has put it, “Algeria has the most complicated history of citizenship in the world” (Ranjana Khanna). Or as one its presidents, Mohamed Boudiaf, declared in 1992, Algeria is “between East and West, between Arab and Berber, between tradition and modernity”. Algeria still seems like a country at a crossroads. For good or ill, Algeria failed to join its neighbours Tunisia and Libya in the ‘Arab Spring’, and the state has an uneasy relationship with the populace. Connections with France in particular are close but can be sensitive, with French influence viewed by some as neo-colonial. The French fought a long and bloody war between 1954 and 1962 to try and retain a colony which they had occupied by force since 1830. Although the memory of the liberation struggle is of little relevance to Algeria’s vast youth population, the current head of state, President Bouteflika, is like all Algerian presidents before him a veteran of that war. 

To celebrate fifty years of Algerian independence, 2012 saw the release of Algerian National Cinema, the first book length study of filmmaking in Algeria to be published in English since the seventies.  Embracing key themes such as the war against France, gender relations, the place of the Berbers in Algerian society, and the representation of memory, it introduces and analyses films from the sixties to the 2000s, from The Battle of Algiers to Mascarades, and provides a window on this neglected but fascinating society.          

Guy Austin is author of Algerian National Cinema, Professor of French Studies and Director of the Research Centre in Film and Digital Media at Newcastle University 

Every Day is Africa Day

By Graham Harrison, author of The African presence

For Britain – and Britons – every day is Africa day. This might seem like a wild claim, but think again. We may all have different ideas about what being British is, but outside of the most blinkered or racist mindsets, being British is connected to a long-standing, diverse, and complex net of interactions between Britain and Africa.

Take Africa Day itself as a starting point. It commemorates the founding of the Organisation of African Unity in 1963. The driving force behind the formation of the OAU was a body of intellectuals and statesmen (there were no women) who had forged a politics of self-determination and ‘Africanness’ after the end of the Second World War. If there was a single moment when the activism that led to the formation of the OAU commenced, it was Manchester, 1945. This was where the Fifth Pan African Congress took place, hosting the ideas of many who would go on to lead countries to Independence. It also reflected a radical political current that emerged in the UK, informed by ideologies and discussions within and between African and Caribbean diasporas, various progressive Christian groups, and the Fabian political left in the UK, all of which pushed decolonisation forward and contributed to a broader narrative about Britain’s place in a post-imperial world.

African independence has defined British politics and public culture, even up to the present day. If British governments felt the anxiety of losing Empire, some succour was gained from the politics of aid which was largely focussed on Africa from the 1960s. Imperial visions were replaced by those of British donor and African recipient. Since the mid 1980s, aid giving has become spectacular: driven my powerful images and emotional appeals, all of which encourage us to think of Britain as being a uniquely virtuous and altruistic nation. Two of the largest political campaigns in British history were largely Africa campaigns: the campaign to abolish the slave trade and Make Poverty History in 2005. The association of British virtue, aid, and British-Africa relations remains today as George Osborne defends the ring-fencing of aid budgets during recessionary pressures to cut budgets.

British popular culture is intrinsically a negotiation of ideas and aesthetics from Africa, black British people who came from Africa via the Caribbean, and of African diasporas: from the smart modernism of Jamaicans in 1950s London through to the sprawling aesthetics of dubstep that evoke the sink estate and the nightbus. Let me type out a disorderly list: the emergence of new churches and mosques; innovations in art; vibrant community associations; participation in local and national government policy (often flippantly derided as ‘multiculturalism’); Olympic gold medal winners, Africa in films, museums, public exhibitions, ‘world music’; tourist and gap year fantasies; Red Nose Day… It seems to me that we might be struck by how British public culture has been changed by Americanisation, but we should also note some Africanisation as well.

If you are disposed to celebrate Africa Day, remember how thoroughly British you are being.

We're offering discounts on all our Africa related titles this month, visit the MUP website for more details.

'Irish women in medicine, c.1880s−1920s' - Irish launch photos

Last month Laura Kelly launched Irish women in medicine, c.1880s−1920s: Origins, education and careers in her native Ireland. The photos below demonstrate the enthusiasm for the book and the reception which it received. Congratulations Laura!

Call for papers: Histories of transport, mobility, and environment. Journal of Transport History, Special Issue

Call for Papers: Histories of Transport, Mobility, and Environment

Journal of Transport History, Special Issue

In 1844 William Wordsworth wrote passionately about a railway that was desecrating the tranquility of the English Lake District, if not setting fire to woodland and dividing ancient fields and ecologies. Across the Atlantic in the same century, Henry Thoreau expressed gratitude that people could not yet fly “and lay waste the sky as well as the earth”.

‘Conquest’, defilement and intrusion have been labels since pinned on many transport investments and mass traveling. Deforestation, air pollution, oil spills, noise, landscape leveling, water table lowering, and habitat change have all been associated with environmentally blind infrastructure expansion and mobility in the past. Conversely, there have been transport projects linked with landscape beautification, and mobility may be said to have increased appreciation of the sanctity and fragility of wilderness. Some environmental activism has been directed at transport projects. Historians of transport and mobility as well as environmental historians have dealt with these issues, but more research is needed.

We invite scholarly contributions that examine the historical relationship between transport and mobility and the natural environment for a proposed Special Issue of the Journal of Transport History scheduled for December 2014 (vol 35 [2]). Contributions may be substantial library and archive-based research essays of 8,000 words (including endnotes and Abstract), or shorter pieces (1,500 words) for the Journal's 'Surveys & Speculations' and its 'Exhibitions & Museum Reviews' sections.

In existence for over 50 years, The Journal of Transport History publishes scholarly research and commentary on the history of transport, travel, tourism and mobility, including their relationship with planning and policy.

The Special Issue will be guest edited Thomas Zeller, author of Driving Germany: the Landscape of the German Autobahn, 1930-1970 (2007). Together with JTH editor Gordon Pirie, he will select papers based on their originality and scholarly rigour, but will also strive for broad coverage of periods, themes, continents and transport modes. Papers will be subject to a double-blind review process. Conceptually progressive research is especially encouraged. A second call will be made in June 2013. Prospective authors should contact Thomas Zeller (tzeller@umd.edutzeller@umd.edu) and Gordon Pirie (jth.editorial@gmail.com).

Final submissions for the JTH Special Environmental Issue should be lodged by 5 August 2013. More detail about the JTH, and back issues, are online at http://manchester.metapress.com/content/122747.

Launches! Irish women in medicine, c.1880s−1920s - 15th April AND 24th April!

Defending the Realm? The Politics of Britain’s Small Wars since 1945

Ever wondered why Britain claims to be the market leader in counter-insurgency or, how this diminutive island-based state earned such a world-wide reputation for its ‘success’ in this intensely political category of warfare?

When Aaron Edwards began research for this book in 2008 he was determined to try and find an answer to the question: if Britain was the ‘market leader’ in counter-insurgency, then why was its military doing so badly in Iraq and Afghanistan? An elementary proposition one might think, but he remained unconvinced that there was a deliberate strategy being followed, especially since many of the cases frequently mentioned in dispatches by military commanders were anything but outright ‘successes’.

His scepticism soon turned to disbelief when he visited British forces in Iraq in 2008. There, the successful ‘charge of the knights’ operation had just broken the back of the militias in downtown Basra, but it could not hide the impression that the British were ‘losing’ and had now thrown their lot into drawing down their presence.

When he returned from Iraq he began to question whether Britain’s armed forces were experiencing a case of déjà vu. British withdrawal from Palestine in 1948 and Aden in 1967 offered historical precedents more suited to comparison that the measured successes of Malaya and Northern Ireland.

 The more he spent time in the archives and the more he interviewed eyewitnesses of these small wars, the more it seemed likely that Britain had not been as successful, either politically or militarily, as some overenthusiastic and, ultimately, uncritical commentators had claimed.

To be sure, Britain’s reputation vis-à-vis its small wars after 1945 has been somewhat mixed.

After several years of painstaking research across the United Kingdom and on the ground, Aaron Edwards has written an account of Britain’s small wars that highlights the political dynamics informing, constraining and enabling the employment of military force in ‘small wars’. He profiles the strategy-making processes at work amongst the politicians, civil servants and military commanders who orchestrated these small wars, from Palestine at the end of the Second World, through Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus and Aden in the mid-Twentieth Century and beyond to more contemporary conflicts in Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan.

With a particular focus on Britain’s small wars since 1945, Defending the Realm? will be of interest to students and scholars of politics, military history, strategy and International Relations.

Defending the Realm? will be launched at the annual PSA Conference in Cardiff on 26th March 2013.

For further analysis of how ‘lessons’ from Britain’s long history of countering irregular adversaries have been stressed, ignored or misapplied by strategists and defence planners since 1945, see Aaron’s recent policy paper on History and Policy website

Launch for Ireland, Africa and the end of Empire

MUP author awarded a Mid-Career Fellowship

PRESS RELEASE

 

Dr Deborah Sugg Ryan, Senior Lecturer Histories and Theories of Design at Falmouth University, has been awarded a Mid-Career Fellowship by the British Academy for Humanities and Social Sciences. The scheme attracts strong competition, receiving over 300 outline applications and awarding only 46 fellowships for 2012-13.

The Fellowship is intended to support outstanding individual researchers with excellent research proposals, and to promote public understanding and engagement with humanities and social sciences. The awards allow recipients time freed from normal teaching and administrative commitments to devote to the completion of a major piece of research. The Academy also places emphasis on applicants' evidence of a commitment to public engagement with and communication of the results of the research during the period of the Fellowship.

Deborah's research, titled 'Ideal' Homes: Design, Architecture and Suburban Modernity in England, 1908-2014, to be published by Manchester University Press, explores the architecture, design and decoration of the ‘ideal' home. It draws on and extends Deborah's research on the Ideal Home Show, which resulted in her doctorate (1995), a monograph (1997) and Design Museum exhibition ‘Ideal Homes' (1993). Deborah says, “Founded in 1908, the Ideal Home Show is the oldest and longest continuously running commercial exhibition aimed at the public in the world. Its history gives an unrivaled insight into the public's taste in architecture, design and all matters that make a house a home.”

Deborah’s research on the Ideal Home Show will result in a revised version of her book on the Ideal Home Show, updated to include a discussion of the representation of the sustainable home in the 2000s. She is also writing a book on the inter-war home for Manchester University Press. Both books will be published in 2014.

In addition, Deborah is also doing knowledge exchange with the Ideal Home Show’s owners Media 10 to disseminate her work to visitors. Lee Newton, CEO of Media-10 said: "On the day we first took charge we were handed Deborah's fantastic book which really gave us a sense of the history and importance of what we had bought. In actual fact, it helped us to understand that more than just buying a business we had become the guardians of a great British tradition. We are delighted to be in regular contact with Deborah, working with her over 2012-13 and beyond. It is wonderful that with the support of the British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship that we can further investigate and explore the rich history of the Ideal Home Show, dating back to 1908."

Deborah is now halfway through her fellowship. She says, ‘It has been fascinating to revisit archives that I first used 20 years ago. Things are so much better catalogued now. I have been able to, for example, to connect designs for the exhibition by Raymond McGrath in the Royal Institute of British Architects’ archives with a photo of his scheme as it was actually enacted in 1933 in the Earls Court & Olympia company archives. Lots of material, such as digital copies of newspapers, is available online, something that didn’t exist when I started my PhD in 1990. I have recently found photos of the first Ideal Home Exhibition in 1908 in the Daily Mirror, which was the first newspaper to include photos. The photos include an image of a suffragette invasion of the exhibition. This is really significant, as until now I thought only one photo had survived! I am currently pursuing sources of funding for a project to bring all the Ideal Home Show archive material together online into a digital portal, which would be of immense use to academics, schools, designers, architects and the exhibitions industry”.

Deborah is also working on a funding bid to build a 'house of the future' at the show. This has been a significant feature in the show's history, most notably with houses by RA Duncan and S Rowland Pierce's in 1928; Wells Coates and David Pleydell Bouverie's Sunspan House in 1934; Alison & Peter Smithson in 1956 and Nigel Coates' Oyster House in 1998. Deborah is planning to meet with a group of leading academics in design, architecture, geography, anthropology and energy policy at the show this year as a first step.

Deborah has given several talks this year on her research (which you can find detailed on her academia page).

She has also been commissioned by the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography to write entries on two people associated with the history of the show: 

1. Thomas Wareham Smith (1874-1938): advertising director of the Daily Mail, who founded the Ideal Home Exhibition in 1908. 

2. Nancie Clifton Reynolds (1903-1931) [real name Agnes Margaret Warden Hardie], Girton graduate and expert on housework who demonstrated labour-saving appliances at the Ideal Home Exhibition, organised other women demonstrators, and wrote articles in the catalogue.

Editor’s notes

Dr Deborah Sugg Ryan
Deborah.suggryan@falmouth.ac.uk
07958 196133
Twitter: @DeborahSuggRyan
Academia: http://falmouth.academia.edu/DeborahRyan

 

Contact: Bethan Hirst

Sales and marketing Executive
Manchester University Press
Oxford Rd, Manchester, M13 9NR
+44 (0) 161 275 2310
Bethan.hirst@manchester.ac.uk
http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/
Twitter: @ManchesterUP

 

Formed 10 years ago, Media 10 Limited is a multi-award winning company with a wealth of experience and a vibrant culture. Media 10 are a privately owned company based in Loughton, Essex employing 180 staff and have fast become one of the leading players in the events industry as a result of the hugely successful Grand Designs Live and the country’s largest consumer exhibition – The Ideal Home Show.

For 2013 Media 10 has been asked to organise The Coronation Festival, a one-off 4 day event held in the gardens of Buckingham Palace, to mark the 60^th year of Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation.

Other events in the portfolio include 100% Design, Britain and Ireland’s Next Top Model Live, Clerkenwell Design Week, The London Design Trail, FutureDrive, Destination Star Trek London, The Ideal Home Show at Christmas and The Ideal Home Show Scotland.
Media 10’s award winning magazines include Icon, Grand Designs, On Office, The Selfbuilder, Gurgle magazine, The Clerkenwell Post and M the music magazine published for the MCPS-ORS Alliance.

Contact: Rob Nathan
robert@media-ten.com
www.media-ten.com
Twitter: @ideal_home_show #IHS

The British Academy, established by Royal Charter in 1902, is the national body that champions and supports the humanities and social sciences. It aims to inspire, recognise and support excellence and high achievement across the UK and internationally. For more information, please visit www.britac.ac.uk. Follow the British Academy on Twitter @britac_news  

 

Contact: Kate Rosser Frost
Press & PR Manager
The British Academy
10-11 Carlton House Terrace
London, SW1Y 5AH
020 7969 5263
07931 227 451
k.rosserfrost@britac.ac.uk

 

Falmouth University is the only independent Higher Education institution in Cornwall with the right to award degrees in its own name.  The University has two campuses – on Woodlane in Falmouth and Tremough in Penryn (which it owns and jointly manages with the University of Exeter). Falmouth is a founding partner in the Combined Universities in Cornwall (CUC), a unique initiative to promote regional economic regeneration through Higher Education, funded mainly by the European Union (Objective One and Convergence), the South West Regional Development Agency and the Higher Education Funding Council for England, with support from Cornwall Council.

Contact: Sally Grint

Communications & PR Manager
Falmouth University
Woodlane, Falmouth, Cornwall TR11 4RH
m: 07780 565552
www.falmouth.ac.uk
sally.grint@falmouth.ac.uk
Twitter: @FalmouthDesign