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Periodical article | Leiden University 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, Martin |
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 Magubane Sifiso Mxolisi Ndlovu Jabulani Sithole |
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] |