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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | 'South Africa's Vietnam'? Literary History and Cultural Memory of the Border War |
Author: | Baines, Gary |
Year: | 2003 |
Periodical: | South African Historical Journal |
Issue: | 49 |
Pages: | 172-192 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Angola South Africa Namibia |
Subjects: | military intervention military occupation military personnel literature literary criticism History and Exploration Military, Defense and Arms Literature, Mass Media and the Press |
External link: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02582470308671453 |
Abstract: | America's war in Vietnam became a point of reference for South African soldiers who served in the Border War, the South African Defence Force's (SADF) illegal occupation of Namibia in the 1970s and 1980s. Basing himself on the impressions of South African soldier-authors - white conscript soldiers rather than freedom fighters - who served at the Namibian/Angolan border, the author of the present paper contends that South African soldiers related to American Vietnam war films and literature in order to make sense of significant episodes in their life stories. This was because, at the time, local productions of war adventure films with a Border setting lacked credible story lines and heroes. The author makes his case by examining themes which resonate in the literatures of both the Vietnam War and the Border War. [ASC Leiden abstract] |