|
Books > Humanities > History > African history
Watter soort mens was dr. H.F. Verwoerd, die sesde premier van die
Unie van Suid-Afrika en grondlegger van die huidige Republiek? Die
bydraers tot hierdie boek skryf op onderhoudende wyse oor hoe hulle
hom onthou, wat hulle saam met hom beleef het en oor hulle
opvatting van sy politieke oogmerke. Die persoonlike aard van die
bydraes verleen ’n dimensie aan die boek wat in objektiewe
geskiedskrywing ontbreek. Verwoerd tree te voorskyn as vriend,
gesinsman, volksman, raadsman en leier. Hierdie bundel verskyn die
eerste keer in 2001 by geleentheid van die 100ste herdenking van
dr. Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd se geboortedag, 8 September 1901. Die
bygewerkte weergawe in 2016 bevat nuwe bydraes deur onder andere
Elise Verwoerd, Cas Bakkes en Albert Hertzog.
Let us rewrite our history; A history that speaks of Africa as
experienced by Africans. Let us rewrite our history that speaks of
ubuntu traditions, isintu practices and umuntu/abantu as central
pillars of society. Let us rewrite a narrative that speaks isintu
sethu - setso sa rona, isintu - setso sa rona as a 'Set of Rules'
for all practices in society. Twenty-five years after the delivery
of political democracy, the Edenic projects of nonracialism and the
Rainbow Nation have failed because there was no fuller appreciation
of what is meant by ubuntu. Ubuntu consists of three integral
parts: first, amasiko, which consists of traditions, norms and
customs; isintu: rituals, performances and practices that help with
the embodiment of ubuntu; and umuntu, the performer and
practitioner of isintu and bearer of the ubuntu value system as a
state of being and identity. The version of ubuntu that was used
and applied immediately after 1994 for engendering nationbuilding
should have initially been focused on rebuilding the Black social
groups before there were attempts at rebuilding all races, through
the defunct Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), and forging
social cohesion through short-term sporting codes such as the 1995
Rugby World Cup, the 1996 Africa Cup of Nations and the 2010 Fifa
World Cup. Such an understanding of ubuntu, exemplified above, came
across as sanitised and a quick fix that could not undo centuries
of dehumanisation, as characterised by apartheid. By definition and
practice, that is anathema to ubuntu since it depreciated the value
systems and performances of isintu of the majority population and
defiled the humanity of both the Black people and their white
counterparts. Isintu ought to be regarded as a tool of inculcation
of rules, norms and traditions that structure limits and help with
the embodiment of ubuntu. This book regards it as well suited for
solving the impasse currently witnessed in South Africa. It is only
with the inclusion of the analysis and discussion of isintu that
ubuntu may be understood and reveal its performative prowess in the
production of identities and a variety of capitals meant to sustain
the societies of sub-Saharan Africa. Needless to say, some aspects
of ubuntu may well be suitable for export as representative of
humanism or critical humanism. However, the system of ubuntu needs
to be properly rationalised before it can be chopped down and
paraded as a universal tool. The tendency of parading ubuntu as a
universal tool of humanism has tended to weaken it along with
individuals whose bodies and geographies are a locus for
cultivation identities and diverse forms of capital that help enact
and sustain local value systems. This book presents the true
meaning of ubuntu, which has its roots in communitarian societies
and their value systems. As part of an international benchmark on
the viability of local value systems as a conceptual framework for
performances of production aimed at a fulfilled citizenry, the book
compares ubuntu to its counterpart value systems of Confucianism in
China and Jantelagen in Sweden.
The British Colonial Record to 1939 This history of British
colonial rule in Nyasaland, now Malawi, from 1891 up to the
outbreak of the Second World War, is based on extensive research in
government archives as well as information obtained from newspapers
and missionary letters. It briefly tracks how the territory came
under British rule and then focuses in more detail than previous
studies on how Whitehall treated this highly individual but easily
neglected territory and how this fitted into the broader British
African context. At the local level there is also closer
examination, both critical and sympathetic, of the personalities
and performances of successive Governors and their administrative
staff in relation to economic, social and security policy, within
cripplingly small budgets. The activities of the small European
commercial, planting and missionary community are also closely
followed for their political influence and contribution to the
colonial economy. Although the small Indian community had little
political voice, its position as a regular petty commercial element
in the country is also considered. Crucially, this history
incorporates the political, social and economic impact of
colonialism on the African population, including the shock of the
First World War. David Thompson is an amateur historian whose first
and probably only book this is. His career at GCHQ spanned 38
years, with a late year attached to the Ministry of Defence. He
lives in Cheltenham.
Dit is 1713. VOC-admiraal Johannes van Steelant bring sy ryklik belaaide retoervloot via die Kaapse diensstasie terug na Nederland uit Batavia. Saam op die vlagskip, sy vyf jong kinders. Op die oop see raak hulle een-een siek. Hete koors, maagpyn, swere – die gevreesde pokke.
Op 12 Februarie gaan die gesin, nou almal gesond, aan land in Tafelbaai. Hul skeepsklere word gewas in die VOC se slawelosie. Enkele maande later is byna die helfte van die Kaapse bevolking dood aan pokke.
In Retoervloot bring VOC-kenner Dan Sleigh dié gegewe, en die verbysterende werkinge van die VOC-retoervlootstelsel, lewend voor die oog. Aan die hand van Van Steelant se nuut-ontdekte skeepsjoernaal, met die agtergrondinkleding wat ’n meesterlike geskiedkundige soos Sleigh kan bied, staan die leser op die dek van vlagskip Sandenburg – ’n magtige skip van ’n roemryke organisasie, dog uitgelewer aan die woedende oseaan. Verder is Retoervloot ’n gedenksteen vir Kaapstad se grootste ramp tot op hede
Through reconstruction of oral testimony, folk stories and poetry,
the true history of Hausa women and their reception of Islam's
vision of Muslim in Western Africa have been uncovered. Mary Wren
Bivins is the first author to locate and examine the oral texts of
the 19th century Hausa women and challenge the written
documentation of the Sokoto Caliphate. The personal narratives and
folk stories reveal the importance of illiterate, non-elite women
to the history of jihad and the assimilation of normative Islam in
rural Hausaland. The captivating lives of the Hausa are captured,
shedding light on their ordinary existence as wives, mothers, and
providers for their family on the eve of European colonial
conquest. From European observations to stories of marriage, each
entry provides a personal account of the Hausa women's encounters
with Islamic reform to the center of an emerging Muslim Hausa
identity. Each entry focuses on: BLFemale historiography BLThe
importance of oral history BLNew methodoligical approaches to the
oral culture of popular Islam BLThe raw voice of Hausa women. The
comprehensive history is easy to read and touches on an era that no
other scholar has dissected.
The Khoesan were the first people in Africa to undergo the full
rigours of European colonisation. By the early nineteenth century,
they had largely been brought under colonial rule, dispossessed of
their land and stock, and forced to work as labourers for farmers
of European descent. Nevertheless, a portion of them were able to
regain a degree of freedom and maintain their independence by
taking refuge in the mission stations of the Western and Eastern
Cape, most notably in the Kat River valley. For much of the
nineteenth century, these Khoesan people kept up a steady
commentary on, and intervention in, the course of politics in the
Cape Colony. Through petitions, speeches at meetings, letters to
the newspapers and correspondence between themselves, the Cape
Khoesan articulated a continuous critique of the oppressions of
colonialism, always stressing the need for equality before the law,
as well as their opposition to attempts to limit their freedom of
movement through vagrancy legislation and related measures. This
was accompanied by a well-grounded distrust, in particular, of the
British settlers of the Eastern Cape and a concomitant hope, rarely
realised, in the benevolence of the British government in London.
Comprising 98 of these texts, These Oppressions Won't Cease - an
utterance expressed by Willem Uithaalder, commander of Khoe rebel
forces in the war of 1850-3 - contains the essential documents of
Khoesan political thought in the nineteenth century. These texts of
the Khoesan provide a history of resistance to colonial oppression
which has largely faded from view. Robert Ross, the eminent
historian of precolonial South Africa, brings back their voices
from the annals of the archive, voices which were formative in the
establishment of black nationalism in South Africa, but which have
long been silenced.
‘The freezing loneliness made one wish for death,’ journalist Joyce Sikakane-Rankin said of solitary confinement. With seven other women, including Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, she was held for more than a year.
This is the story of these heroic women, their refusal to testify in the ‘Trial of Twenty-Two’ in 1969, their brutal detention and how they picked up their lives afterwards.
In explaining how developments in the Kruger National Park have
been integral to the wider political and socio-economic concerns of
South Africa, this text opens an alternative perspective on its
history. Nature protection has evolved in response to a variety of
stimuli including white self-interest, Afrikaner nationalism,
ineffectual legislation, elitism, capitalism and the exploitation
of Africans.
|
|