The Basotho Nation-State: What Legacy for the Future?

1981 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard F. Weisfelder
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Considerable Effort ◽  
Economic Problems ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Weapon

Virtually all analyses of Lesotho's political framework have agreed that strong elements of national identity have neither forestalled domestic conflict nor served to promote a unified assault on awesome economic problems. Hence many writers imply that a major asset, rarely found in independent Africa, has been wasted.1 Roger Leys has perceptively applied dependency theories of a ‘labour reserve’ economy to Lesotho,2 and spends considerable effort on historical analysis aimed at demonstrating the duration and pervasiveness of this process of systematic underdevelopment. In his conclusion he suggests that ‘the long and courageous battle of the Basotho to assert their dignity and worth is in fact a resource and political weapon of incomparable significance in the long-term battle for the liberation of southern Africa.’ Leys infers that national and class identities are interrelated, and possibly reinforcing, when he says that ‘the history of the struggle of the Basotho people and the very degree of their integration into the black working class of South Africa is a formidable weapon.’3

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.

The Old Story: Sovereign Nation-States and Myths of National Identity

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Nadeau
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Protestant Reformation ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Nation States ◽  
History Of ◽  
Personal Qualities ◽  
Catholic Churches

When members of a society coordinate their activities based on a broadly disseminated and reinforced set of dogmatic beliefs in their mythological or religious traditions, anthropologists refer to these beliefs as useful myths. The aim of this chapter is to reveal that the dogmatic beliefs associated with the construct of the sovereign nation-state are useful myths that can no longer be viewed as useful because they are effectively undermining efforts to resolve the environmental crisis. This situation is greatly complicated by the fact that the sovereign nation-state is a normative construct, or a construct that is assumed to be a taken-for-granted and indelible aspect of geopolitical reality. The large problem here is that this normative construct constitutes one of the greatest conceptual barriers to resolving the environment crisis. This brief account of the origins and transformations of the construct of the sovereign nation-state is intended to accomplish four objectives. The first is to demonstrate that the construct of the sovereign nation-state emerged in Europe from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries in a series of narratives that transferred the God-given power and authority of sovereign monarchs to the states governed by these monarchs. The second is to reveal that the narratives about nationalism and national identity that emerged during and after the Protestant Reformation abused the truths of religion in an effort to convince core populations living within the borders of particular nation-states that they were a chosen people possessing superior cultural values and personal qualities. The third is to show that the dogmatic beliefs legitimated and perpetuated by these narratives eventually resulted in the creation of churches of state with sacred symbols, rites, and rituals similar to those in Protestant and Catholic churches. And the fourth objective is to provide a basis for understanding how these dogmatic beliefs eventually became foundational to a system of international government, the United Nations, predicated on the construct of the sovereign nation-state. The history of this construct is much more complex and far more detailed than the brief account in this chapter suggests.

History of Stress at Vaalputs, Namaqualand, South Africa: Evidence for a Mid-Cretaceous “Wegener-type Orogeny” in Western Southern Africa

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco A.G. Andreoli ◽  
Giulio Viola ◽  
Alexandre Kounov ◽  
Johann Scheepers ◽  
Oliver Heidbach ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
History Of

Old and New Rights

2009 ◽  
pp. 20-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mauro Di Meglio ◽  
Enrico Gargiulo
Keyword(s):  
16Th Century ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Social Imagination ◽  
Unit Of Analysis ◽  
History Of ◽  
Recent Phase ◽  
Effective Instrument ◽  
Different Levels

This chapter offers a long-term perspective on citizenship, questioning one of the basic assumptions of most of the literature on this topic, that is, the nation-state as unit of analysis. Through the adoption of a world-systemic perspective, two basic aspects of the history of citizenship stand out. Firstly, the fundamentally exclusive nature of this category, as it emerged and developed over the history of the modern world-system, since at least the “long 16th Century”. And, secondly, that well before the so-called “information revolution” of the last decades, “technology” has shaped the Western social imagination, acting, in various and changing historical forms, as an effective instrument of control and supremacy, producing asymmetric and inegalitarian effects, and providing a yardstick of the different “levels of development” of Western and non-Western peoples. In this view, the most recent phase of the history of citizenship, his e-form, seems to replicate, in new ways, the explanations of the gap existing both between and within countrie—now conceptualized as “digital divide”—and, at the same time, the illusory universalistic promise of an expansion of the citizenship and the rights associated to it.

Southern Africa: A Cataclysm Averted?

Worldview ◽  
1975 ◽  
Vol 18 (11) ◽  
pp. 11-16
Author(s):  
Ross K. Baker
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
National Interest ◽  
Substantial Part ◽  
World Power ◽  
External Relations ◽  
The Republic

In a time when idiocies such as the domino theory comprise a substantial part of American foreign policy one has to look hard for evidence that authentic national interest is anywhere being invoked as a rationale for external relations. That the Republic of South Africa seems to be a world power demonstrating innovation in diplomacy and putting shibboleths in their rightful place says something about the genera] bankruptcy of Western statecraft. While Ford and Kissinger flail about seeking justifications for American failures and misalliances, a moldy, outcast regime in Pretoria has embarked upon a path of diplomatic initiative which has effectively breached the wall of isolation that has surrounded it for two decades. The motives of the regime of John Vorster may be sinister and base, but there appears to be a far more sophisticated perception of long-term interests in Pretoria than in Washington.

Cuba's Impact in Southern Africa

1987 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 33-54
Author(s):  
Owen Ellison Kahn
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Regional Cooperation ◽  
Complex Pattern ◽  
Political Relationships ◽  
Guerrilla Movements ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact

This Article Assesses the impact of the Cuban military on strategic, diplomatic and political relationships in southern Africa. It does not deal with why Cuba and its Soviet benefactor have interested themselves in the region, nor does it discuss Soviet influence on Cuban foreign policy. The aspects covered here include: (1) how Cuba and Angola fit into the complex pattern of regional relations in southern Africa; (2) an outline of the region's main territorial actors and guerrilla movements, along with a brief history of Cuban involvement in the area; (3) the response of South Africa to this foreign spoiler of its regional hegemony, (4) regional cooperation in southern Africa insofar as it is a response to South Africa's militancy in the face of international communism as represented in the region by Cuba; and (5) Cuba's effect upon the economy and polity of Angola and Mozambique.

Typification of Hyobanche sanguinea (Orobanchaceae) and the identity of Hyobanche calvescens and Hyobanche glabrata

Phytotaxa ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 299 (1) ◽  
pp. 132
Author(s):  
ANDREA D. WOLFE
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Type Specimens ◽  
History Of Botany ◽  
Cape Peninsula ◽  
Holoparasitic Plants ◽  
History Of ◽  
Small Genus

Hyobanche sanguinea (Orobanchaceae) is a member of a small genus of holoparasitic plants endemic to southern Africa. The description by Linnaeus in 1771 did not include a designated holotype, and no such material has been located in the Linnaean herbaria housed in London or Uppsala. After studying the Linnaean collection of Hyobanche specimens, and researching the history of botany in South Africa, a lectotype is here designated, and an epitype from the Cape Peninsula assigned. In addition, a study of type specimens for H. calvescens, H. glabrata, and H. rubra reveals that the type specimens for H. calvescens and H. glabrata fall within the circumscription of H. rubra, resulting in synonymization of both names.

Ambivalent German narration towards economic problems of eurozone in the light of constructivist approach

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 83-101
Author(s):  
Justyna Bokajło
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Monetary Union ◽  
The Other ◽  
Economic And Monetary Union ◽  
Constructivist Approach ◽  
Economic Problems ◽  
Ambivalent Attitude

The European financial and economic crisis made Germany a leader trying to introduce the principles of order to the Economic and Monetary Union in line with the ideas of German governance policy (Ordnungspolitik), which is explained by ordoliberalism. However, there is strong relativism visible in constructing European reality, resulting from the fact that the adopted ordoliberal assumptions do not fit into the macroeconomic, diversified space of the eurozone, and, what is more, cannot be implemented during the recession, because their effectiveness is determined by the long-term perspective and national identity. Moreover, the role of the leader does not comply with the principles of Ordnungspolitik. On the other hand, the partnership with France, which is necessary to maintain stability of the eurozone, causes a move away from the conceptual assumptions of ordoliberalism. The aim of the article is to draw attention to Germany’s ambivalence in solving the economic problems of EMU, as well as to show ambivalent attitude of other Member States towards Germany.

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