Silence, Disobedience, and African Catholic Sisters in Apartheid South Africa

2011 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Higgs
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Women Religious ◽  
The State ◽  
African Women ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Repression ◽  
Catholic Sisters ◽  
Kwazulu Natal ◽  
State History ◽  
Political Act

Abstract:This article considers the choices made during the apartheid era by Catholic sisters who were members of one of the largest orders for African women, the Montebello Dominicans, based in KwaZulu-Natal, and one of the smallest orders, the Companions of Saint Angela, based in Soweto, the sprawling African township to the southwest of Johannesburg. The Montebellos took an apolitical stance and embraced “silence,” but they could not avoid the political tensions that defined KwaZulu-Natal. The Companions became activists, whose “disobedience” brought them into direct confrontation with the state. History, region, ethnicity, and timing help explain what it meant for African women religious to be apolitical, and what it meant to be politicized, in the context of state repression so effective that every action could be interpreted as a political act.

scholarly journals The reconstitution of African women's spiritualities in the context of the Amazwi Abesifazane (Voices of Women) project in KwaZulu-Natal (1998-2005)

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Bernice Stott
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Narrative Therapy ◽  
Well Being ◽  
National Archive ◽  
The Body ◽  
Government Support ◽  
African Women ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Therapeutic Effects ◽  
Kwazulu Natal

This study will investigate and critically evaluate the reconstitution of African women’s spiritualities in the context of the Amazwi Abesifazane project. This project forms part of the endeavours of Create Africa South, a Non Governmental Organisation situated in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, which was initiated by the artist Andries Botha. It encourages women, post trauma, to ‘re-member’ themselves by creating memory cloths of embroidery and appliqué reflecting on their experiences in pre- and post-apartheid South Africa. This interdisciplinary study theorises that it is an archive that speaks about African women resisting destructive forces and reconstituting their spiritualities through the therapeutic effects of creativity. The study will not include research into the many other activities undertaken by Create Africa South. Rupture is implied in the use of the word ‘reconstitution’. Reconstitution encompasses the act of constituting again the character of the body, mind and spirit as regards health, strength and well-being of the women (McIntosh, 1970:261). In this study, spirituality is defined as the way in which the women in the Amazwi Abesifazane project reflect upon and live out their belief in God. The power of storytelling is examined from the perspectives of narratology, narrative therapy, sewing and orality/literary studies as resources for the women’s reclamation of their lives. Defining feminisms in South Africa is problematised by issues of race, class and culture. In a context of poverty, everyday survivalist strategies are the diverse forms of resistance seen in the Amazwi Abesifazane project. The women’s stories, cloths and interviews are triangulated as primary data. They are examples of the rich art of resistance against despair and are located in a paradigm of hope. In conclusion, I strongly call for government support in declaring the project a national archive. The multidimensional mediums of the Amazwi Abesifazane/ UbuMama projects nurture the women’s creativity and revitalise their spiritualities towards personal and national transformation.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Padraic Kenney
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Prisoners ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Imprisonment

In an ordinary prison, the goal is to rehabilitate its inmates; in the political prison, the state demonstrates its power to detain, confine, name, and torture or at the very least discomfort and inhibit a group of people who claim to oppose it. Often state leaders learn that they have to negotiate with prisoners and treat them as potential partners. Rendered illegible by the state’s prison, prisoners create their own illegibility and confuse the prison, refusing its terms. As they create communal structures, engage in protest, and invent prison universities, political prisoners create a new narrative and wrest back their own agency, forcing the regime to respond. Political imprisonment thus has an effect quite different from that intended by the regime. The conclusion looks briefly at the role of prisoners during and after transformations in Poland, Northern Ireland, and South Africa.

Xenophobic Experiences of Foreign African Women in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanusha Raniga
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Poverty Alleviation ◽  
Informal Settlement ◽  
African Women ◽  
Feminist Methodology ◽  
Foreign National ◽  
Economic Context ◽  
Kwazulu Natal ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Insight Into

This paper examines the complex links between poverty, the gendered nature of xenophobia and the related experiences of foreign national women and their struggle to survive while residing in a predominantly informal settlement in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Using feminist methodology, the paper focuses on 12 foreign African women who relate their stories of vulnerability and experiences of xenophobia; a phenomenon they assert is not common in their own home countries. The empirical data discussed in this paper include the women’s motivations for their migration to South Africa and locate this discourse within the broader African socio-cultural, political and economic context. Further, data elicited from the interviews provide insight into the various “shades” of xenophobia as experienced by these women. The paper contributes to the debates on the promotion of women’s rights and gender equality as a prerequisite to poverty alleviation and ultimately economic growth in Africa.

scholarly journals Repression of the Neo-Biafra Movement – Measures, Responses, and Consequences

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 132
Author(s):  
Olalekan Waheed Adigun
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Context ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Repression ◽  
Democratic Experience ◽  
Longitudinal Qualitative Research ◽  
Ethnic Origins

This paper analyses the measures, reactions, and consequences of the repression of the neo-Biafra movement in Nigeria using longitudinal qualitative research. To go about this, the paper looks at the political context within which the movement operates, it objectives, and its activities are described. The movement started in September 1999 in reaction to perceived marginalisation and victimisation of Nigerians of Igbo ethnic origins by the state. The movement has had visible impacts on Nigeria’s democratic experience, and by extension, the political system. The Nigerian state responded with several measures, including the deployment of military troops in what is known as “Operation Python Dance II” (or Egwu Eke II) as part of measures to cope with the movement’s activities. The paper observed other measures of repression adopted by the state and how the activists have changed or adapted their responses to state repression. The paper also observed that these measures have had several consequences on the resilience of the activists.

scholarly journals RESURRECTING SIZWE BANZI IS DEAD (1972–2008): JOHN KANI, WINSTON NTSHONA, ATHOL FUGARD, AND POSTAPARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA

2009 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gibson Alessandro Cima
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
The State ◽  
National Theatre ◽  
Kwazulu Natal ◽  
Arts Festival ◽  
Brooklyn Academy Of Music

On 30 June 2006 at the annual National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, South Africa, two giants of South African protest theatre, John Kani and Winston Ntshona, performed as the original cast of the landmark struggle drama Sizwe Banzi Is Dead (1972). The revival marked the first production of the play in over twenty-five years. After its brief stint at the National Arts Festival (30 June–5 July 2006), the play transferred to the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town (11 July–5 August) and then entertained a monthlong run at the State Theatre in Pretoria (17 August–17 September). After its turn at the State, the production stopped shortly at the Hilton College Theatre in KwaZulu Natal (19–23 September) before settling into an extended engagement at Johannesburg's Market Theatre (28 September to 22 October). In March 2007, the original cast revival of Sizwe traveled to the British National Theatre before finally ending its tour at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in April 2008.

scholarly journals Editorial

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Francois Venter
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Constitutional Democracy ◽  
Political Dominance ◽  
South African Constitution ◽  
University Of Cape Town ◽  
The University

This second edition of 2006 offers an interesting range of topics, in this instance all covered by South African authors.In her analysis of the "institutions supporting constitutional democracy" established by the South African Constitution, Professor Christina Murray of the University of Cape Town argues that thethe institutions share the roles of providing a check on government and of contributing to transformation.  The newness of democracy, the great demands on the state and the political dominance of the governing party in South Africa are identified as the greatest challenges of the institutions discussed.

Opposition Parties and Democracy in South Africa

1991 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-22
Author(s):  
Marina Ottaway
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Economic System ◽  
Economic Hardship ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Military Regimes ◽  
State Of Mind ◽  
African Socialism

In the heydays of African socialism, Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere declared that socialism was a state of mind. It was, it turned out, the state of mind of some intellectuals, but neither of the mass of the population nor of those in a position to turn an ideal into a political and economic system. In the early 1990s, democracy was sweeping through the continent—as the state of mind not only of a few intellectuals but of a larger segment of the population, although by no means all. It was revulsion against the abuses and human rights violations perpetrated by single party and military regimes, against the lack of accountability of leaders and the economic hardship brought about by years of mismanagement on the part of officials seeking first the political kingdom.

The “Discipline of Freedom”

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antina von Schnitzler
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
Private Organizations ◽  
Systemic Crises ◽  
Styles Of Reasoning

This chapter discusses the beginnings of a specifically neoliberal techno-politics in South Africa within the context of conceptual and practical responses to the 1976 Soweto Uprising. Drawing on archival research and interviews with apartheid-era economists and functionaries, the chapter examines the political styles of reasoning that emerged as neoliberal thought was appropriated by the state and private organizations in response to the systemic crises of the 1970s. It also considers the move away from the macro-techniques of grand apartheid and toward more micro-political techniques at the level of the administrative and the technical. It shows that this late-apartheid techno-politics, and the neoliberal archive that often inspired it, gave rise to a form of counterinsurgency mediated by infrastructure and administrative techniques. Finally, it explains how, in post-1976 South Africa, neoliberalism emerged as a series of adaptable concepts and techniques that built upon and often worked through preexisting contexts.

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