Go to AfricaBib home

Go to AfricaBib home Africana Periodical Literature Go to database home

bibliographic database
Line
Previous page New search

The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here

Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Debating the revival of the workers' movement in the 1970s: the South African Democracy Education Trust and post-apartheid patriotic history
Author:Legassick, MartinISNI
Year:2008
Periodical:Kronos: Journal of Cape History
Issue:34
Pages:240-266
Language:English
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:trade unions
anti-apartheid resistance
historiography
1970-1979
About persons:Bernard Makhosezwe MagubaneISNI
Sifiso Mxolisi NdlovuISNI
Jabulani SitholeISNI
External link:http://www.scielo.org.za/pdf/kronos/v34n1/v34n1a10.pdf
Abstract:The South African Democracy Education Trust (SADET) was established to undertake research on the history of South Africa's liberation struggle between 1960 and 1994. The present author, together with Dave Hemson and Nicole Ulrich, contributed a chapter to a volume on the Durban strikes and the revival of the workers' movement in the 1970s, which was to be published by SADET in 2006. When the three authors submitted the draft chapter, however, it came under severe criticism from the director of the project, Ben Magubane, who also unilaterally decided to retitle the chapter. A chapter in the same volume by Sifiso Ndlovu and Jabulani Sithole was also retitled and was, although originally intended to follow, placed before the chapter by Hemson, Ulrich and Legassick. The present author evaluates Magubane's criticisms and reviews the chapter by Ndlovu and Sithole. He argues that their approach attempts to repress uncomfortable truths in order to present a seamless picture favourable to the ANC and SACTU (South African Congress of Trade Unions). The essential reason why Magubane et al., on behalf of the presidential project, found it necessary to contest the Hemson et al. chapter was because this chapter raised the issue of the political independence of the working class from nationalist orthodoxy. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]
Views
Cover