Forty years of historical research in South Africa: some general trends and personal recollections

Vice Chancellor's Distinguished Research Award Lecture, Rhodes University, 15 October 201

The local evolution of urban apartheid: influx control and segregation in Durban, c.1900 - 1951

Paper presented at the Wits History Workshop: Structure and Experience in the Making of Apartheid, 6-10 February, 1990

The dead will arise: Nongqawuse and the Great Xhosa Cattle-Killing Movement of 1856-7

No abstract available

Chapter one: Founding and establishing an imperial university: the first twenty-five years

Critics of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that sat in the late 1990s have sometimes pointed to its failure to examine the role of larger collectivities in colluding with or acquiescing in the apartheid system. Universities, for instance, have been singled out for their failure both to make submissions to the TRC and to acknowledge openly their past shortcomings during the apartheid era. The historically white, English-medium universities – among them Rhodes University – liked to project themselves as liberal institutions. This book puts this self-representation to the test by looking critically at the operation and functioning of Rhodes University during the segregation and apartheid eras. This study is one of very few that recounts and analyses the whole history of a South African university in a single volume. It covers the founding of Rhodes University College (as it was then called) in 1904, traces its development over the decades, through the attainment of independent status in 1951, ending with a full consideration of the transformation challenges that the university has faced in the post-apartheid era. This is a critical study that points to some of the university’s past failures. But there is also a celebratory dimension, as the book highlights some of the achievements and successes of those who have worked and studied at Rhodes University over the past 112 or so years.Please note that only the first chapter of the book is available online. For further information, or should you wish to purchase a copy of this item, please contact Bulelani Mothlabane (b.mothlabaneATru.ac.za)

Archetypal hero or living saint? The veneration of Nelson Mandela

It is now a commonplace that Nelson Mandela–Madiba–has become the most venerated, iconic political figure of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Accolades and awards have been heaped upon him. In the words of Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary-General,“To this day, Madiba remains probably the single most admired, most respected international figure in the entire world”. 1 “In these times of global warfare and strife,” remarks Desmond Tutu,“… Nelson Mandela stands out as a global icon for peace, love, reconciliation and magnanimity.” 2 In the international media, Mandela has been variously described as the only living saint, 3 and as “a moral colossus” towering over the world. 4 Nadine Gordimer views Gandhi and Mandela as “the two indisputably magnificent great people of the last millennium.” 5 The former Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, was determined, when still in office, that a statue of Mandela be built in Trafalgar Square “so Nelson on his column and Nelson Mandela on his pedestal would in a sense encapsulate the beginning and the end of the British Empire.” 6 There are actual plans afoot to construct a massive statue of Mandela, along the lines of the Statue of Liberty, overlooking the harbour in Port Elizabeth

History after apartheid

[From introduction] The purpose of my lecture tonight is to consider some possible future trends and issues in the discipline of South African history in the post-apartheid era. Before doing that I need to say something about two influences or traditions that have left a troublesome legacy and require critical examination. I am referring to the two ‘E’s’: empiricism and eurocentrism. Now it is true that both of these have wilted under serious assaults from scholars in the past 25 years. But both remain present in many sorts of texts; both remain embedded in what we might call ‘the everyday commonsense view of the world’ - so that they continue to constitute a problem

Not an astute political thinker or visionary

Colin Eglin served as member of parliament for thirty-three years (1958-1961, 1974- 2004), under seven prime ministers or presidents (from Strijdom to Mbeki), and under five different constitutions (the Union Constitution, the Republican, the Tricameral, the 1994 Interim, and the final 1996 Constitution). Moreover during his parliamentary career he belonged to no less than six political parties (the United Party, the Progressive Party, the Progressive Reform Party, the Progressive Federal Party, the Democratic Party, and the Democratic Alliance). This is not to suggest at all that Eglin was one of those party-hopping opportunists that have come to bedevil South African politics in recent years. Far from it – Eglin only once switched parties, being one of the original “Prog” MPs who left the decaying, ever more conservative United Party in 1959 and became one of the founding MPs of the Progressive Party. Thereafter all his changing party affiliations would result from mergers and realignments in parliamentary opposition politics – realignments that always kept the “Progs” at the core

The life and work of a South African economist: Desmond Hobart Houghton, 1906-76

For forty or so years, from the 1930s to the mid-1970s, Desmond Hobart Houghton was one of South Africa’s most prominent economists, based throughout his academic career at Rhodes University. He belonged to the liberal school of economists who believed in the free market and modernization theory, being particularly influenced by W. Rostow’s stages of growth model which he applied to South Africa. The rural economy, migrant labor and regional development, with a particular focus on the Eastern Cape, were his major research interests. He authored a standard text on the South African economy. This article charts his career and thinking