Shaping South Africa - The Shaping of South African Society, 1652–1840. Edited by Richard Elphick and Hermann Giliomee. (Second edition). Cape Town: Maskew Miller Longman, 1989. Pp. xix+623. Rand 39.95, paperback. - The Angry Divide: Social and Economic History of the Western Cape. Edited by Wilmot G. James and Mary Simons. Cape Town and Johannesburg: David Philip, 1989. Pp. xiv+258. Rand 29.95, paperback.

1992 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-145
Author(s):  
Kevin Shillington
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Western Cape ◽  
African Society ◽  
South African Society ◽  
History Of

scholarly journals MARIKANA, A PAST NEVER TRULY ESCAPED: A CRITIQUE ON THE COMMODIFICATION OF THE LEGAL SYSTEM AND THE LAW AS AN INSTRUMENT OF JUSTICE IN POST-APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vaughn Rajah
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
African Society ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
South African Society ◽  
South Africans ◽  
Black South Africans ◽  
History Of

This article demonstrates that the Marikana tragedy was not a departure from the norm, but a continuation of state and corporate behaviour that has oppressed black South Africans for hundreds of years. This will be done through an analysis of the historically discriminatory socio-economic patterns of South African society, and how they subjugate the poor by limiting their access to legal and physical protection. These trends portray a history of commodification of the legal system. I discuss a notable documentary on the massacre, Miners Shot Down, and examine its depiction of the causes and effects of the events. The film provides no mention of the historical context of the killings, nor does it comment on many of the factors contributing to the massacre. Despite this, it succeeded in bringing the events to the attention of the broader public. I analyse the notions of justice, the rule of law and their application in South Africa as well as norms in the nation’s legal culture. Additionally, I examine the Farlam Commission, and how its procedures and conclusions hindered the course of justice in the context of our democracy. Ultimately, I demonstrate how the Marikana massacre was not a change in dynamic, but a reminder of a past we have never truly escaped.

Afrikaanse gereformeerde kerke in die sleurgang van die tydgees

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 49-78
Author(s):  
Pieter Kruger
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
The Political ◽  
African Society ◽  
Pluralistic Society ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
South African Society ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of

During the past nearly 30 years the epochs of democratisation and globalisation became intertwined with the South African society, determining its spirit of the age. The democratisation of South African since 1994 has its own history of radical rather than evolutionary transformative measures which brought about constructive changes to the political and social fibre of a secularised South Africa. In conjunction, globalisation as dominant worldview became evident in the transposition of South Africa into a secular, liberal, capitalistic, pluralistic society. Over this period the Afrikaans-speaking churches of reformed tradition were not immune to these influences, channelled via their members’ experiences of and responses to their changing social and economic setup. These churches have since also changed. Their influence on society and social matters has dwindled. The contexts of their congregations changed. Their traditional collective forms of institutionalised religion are changing due to the influence of a plurality of different personal, religious beliefs and practices. These developments challenge these churches to rethink their denominational identities and consider the way in which they approach society and what they can contribute to the ecumenical church.

Remembering in times of misery: can older people in South Africa ‘get through’?

2005 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 525-541 ◽  
Author(s):  
ELS VAN DONGEN
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Older People ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
South African ◽  
Social History ◽  
Opposite Effect ◽  
African Society ◽  
South African Society ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of

This paper reports a study of the situations of disadvantaged older people in contemporary South African townships. It draws from their own accounts that were collected through ethnographic research in day centres and care homes. Most of the informants had experienced a succession of serious material, psychological, social and cultural losses. Their lives had been characterised by violence, inequality, disruption and poverty. A dominant theme in their accounts is that they can hardly ‘get through’ their lives. Their thankless, even alienated, situations are not only a function of personal losses but also have much to do with the recent political and social history of South Africa. The colonial and Apartheid eras have by and large been excluded from the country's collective memory, with the result that older people's experiences of those times are not valued as affirmational reminiscence or for shaping a kin group's common identity. Expressed recollections have acquired a different function, of being a means of articulating moral judgements on the present. The result is that memories, rather than bringing the generations together, have the opposite effect and widen the gap in understanding between the older and younger generations. This in turn has serious effects on older people's wellbeing. The silencing of memories reflects the society's radical break with the past, which has made it difficult for younger people to mourn or sympathise with older people's losses. While far from helpless victims, many of the older township residents lack meaningful frames by which to locate themselves in contemporary South African society.

The Missing Link in Theal's Career: The Historian as Labour Agent in the Western Cape

1980 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 273-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Saunders
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Civil Service ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Western Cape ◽  
Missing Link ◽  
Amount Of Information ◽  
Colonial Archives ◽  
History Of ◽  
As If

George McCall Theal, most prolific of South African historians, deserves a modern biography. In the few, very inadequate, accounts of his life that are available there is no mention of his work as a labour agent in the western Cape. Bosman mentioned that he visited Stellenbosch and Tulbagh in 1878, but did not say what he was doing there. Babrow admits that she did not know what his first formal civil service post was. Immelman misleadingly suggests that it was a post in the Colonial Treasurer's Department, when in fact he did not join that department until March 1879.This ignorance is not altogether surprising for, while Theal himself in his later published work and in the evidence he gave to parliamentary select committees in 1895 and 1906 provided a fair amount of information about his career before May 1878 and after March 1879, he did not say what he had done between those dates, almost as if he did not wish to remember it. In his History of the Boers in South Africa, indeed, he wrote that “when the war was over [referring to the Cape-Xhosa war, which ended in May 1878] I asked for and obtained the charge of the Colonial Archives preserved in Cape Town,” which is totally inaccurate. In the relevant volume in his History of South Africa, he mentioned that he was asked to superintend Oba's Xhosa in the Victoria East district in December 1877, and later that he had served as special magistrate at Tamacha in the King William's Town district in 1881, but there are no other references to his own career.

scholarly journals Colonial Institutionalisation of Poverty among Blacks in South Africa

2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tshepo Lephakga
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Black People ◽  
African Society ◽  
Social Death ◽  
South African Society ◽  
Epistemological Foundation ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

This article examines colonial institutionalisation of poverty amongst colonised and conquered blacks in South Africa. Colonialism divided the world in two:  the centre, which is occupied by Europeans, and the periphery, which is occupied by non-Europeans. This division institutionalised poverty amongst the colonised to maintain the supremacist status of the coloniser and the colonial status of the colonised as non-beings. Colonial apartheid, following the colonial epistemological foundation(s) and justification(s) of the centre imposing itself on the periphery, strived to make black people go through social death, which became a necessity fed into the colonial thinking that those in the periphery are lesser beings. Social death was engineered and maintained through the impoverishment of black people. Poverty and colonial dependency syndrome were institutionalised following the systematic institutionalisation of the social creation of race. A number of scholars have noted that race is a social creation with real consequences. It is thus not surprising that the painful history of South Africa resulted in the impoverishment of the majority of the people in the country. Following its long historical institutionalisation, poverty resulted in poor black people internalising oppression and doubting their humanness. This paper contends that colonial apartheid is the cause of a vast inequality in the South African society, including social institutionalised poverty among the blacks in South Africa.

Why English dominates the central economy

2002 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence Wright
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Language Policy ◽  
South African ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
African Society ◽  
World Language ◽  
South African Society ◽  
Economic Basis ◽  
State Of Affairs

This paper sets out to formulate some of the economic reasons for the continuing dominance of English in the boardrooms, government forums, parastatals and laboratories of South Africa, to consider whether this situation is likely to change, and to assess the extent to which such a state of affairs is at odds with South Africa’s new language policy. The historical reasons for the dominance of English in this sphere are well known: the language’s imperial history, its status as a world language, its role as a medium for political opposition during the apartheid conflict, and the accumulation of capital and economic influence by English-speakers from the mid-nineteenth century onward. However, the day-to-day economic basis for the continuing dominance of English at the apex of South African society has hardly been considered.

scholarly journals A Quarter Century of Democracy and the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leepo Johannes Modise
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
South African Society ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
History Of ◽  
Measuring Tool ◽  
The Church

This paper focuses on the role of the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa (URCSA) in the South African society during the past 25 years of its services to God, one another and the world. Firstly, the paper provides a brief history of URCSA within 25 years of its existence. Secondly, the societal situation in democratic South Africa is highlighted in light of Article 4 of the Belhar Confession and the Church Order as a measuring tool for the role of the church. Thirdly, the thermometer-thermostat metaphor is applied in evaluating the role of URCSA in democratic South Africa. Furthermore, the 20 years of URCSA and democracy in South Africa are assessed in terms of Gutierrez’s threefold analysis of liberation. In conclusion, the paper proposes how URCSA can rise above the thermometer approach to the thermostat approach within the next 25 years of four general synods.

scholarly journals Sense (Scents) of South Africa

1999 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-5
Author(s):  
Katherine F. Shepard
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Health Care ◽  
South African ◽  
Health Care Facilities ◽  
Speech Pathology ◽  
African Society ◽  
South African Society ◽  
Care Facilities ◽  
The University ◽  
Physiotherapy Education

This paper presents a brief description of some of the author’s perceptions of the land, of physiotherapy education and practice and of the struggle of the nation of South Africa acquired during a 4 week visit in late spring 1997. One week was spent in Cape Town participating in several venues at the International Congress of the South African Society of Physiotherapy. Three weeks were spent at the University of the Witswatersrand in Johannesburg presenting a course in qualitative research to health care colleagues representing the disciplines of physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech pathology and occupational health. During the time in Johannesburg several health care facilities were visited including Baragwanath Hospital, Natal Hospital and the Wits Rural Facility and Tinswalo Hospital at Acornhoek.

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